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Caroline  Wells  Healey 

From  a  pencil  drawing  by  Alvan  Clark  about  1836. 


THE  COLLEGE,  THE  MARKET, 
AND  THE  COURT; 

OR, 

WOMAN'S  RELATION  TO 
EDUCATION,  LABOR,  AND  LAW. 

BY 
CAROLINE  H.  DALL,  LL.  D. 

AUTHOR  OF  "historical  SKETCHES,"  "SUNSHINB,"  "THE  LIFE  OF 
DR.  ZAKRZEW8KA."  ETC. 


"Let  this  be  copied  out, 
And  keep  it  safe  for  our  remembrance. 
Return  the  precedent  to  these  lords  again." — Kiko  Johk 

"How  canst  thou  make  me  thy  friend  who  in  nothing  am  like  thee? 
Thy  life  and  dwelling  are  under  the  waters;  but  my  way  of  living 
la  to  eat  all  that  man  does!" — Batrachomyomachia. 


MEMORIAL  EDITION 
1914 


-t! 


MBMOBIAL  BDITION. 


THE  RTJMFORD  PRESS 
CONCORD,   N.   H, 


PREFATORY  NOTE  OF  THE  EXECUTOR. 


Mrs.  Caroline  Wells  Healey  Dall  died  at  her  home 
in  Washington,  D.  C,  December  seventeenth,  1912, 
in  the  ninetieth  year  of  her  age. 

Part  of  the  twentieth  paragraph  of  her  last  will 
and  testament  reads  as  follows: 

"I  .  .  .  will  that  'The  College,  Market  and  Court,' — 
for  which  I  received  from  Alfred  University,  New  York,  the  first 
(LL.D.)  degree  given  in  modem  times  to  a  woman, — ^be  re- 
printed .  .  .  with  the  address  given  to  the  Alumni  in  con- 
ferring it." 

Mrs.  Dall  justly  regarded  this  work  as  summariz- 
ing the  data  and  arguments  for  the  emancipation  of 
women  from  the  restrictions  which,  in  her  youth, 
hampered  them  in  their  rights  to  labor  and  to  learn. 
This  was  the  message  which  during  her  active  life- 
time she  delivered  to  the  world.  Social  obstacles, 
hardly  conceivable  today,  lay  continually  in  her  path. 
With  a  few  other  chosen  souls  she  ''bore  the  burden 
and  heat  of  the  day."  A  pioneer,  she  met  with  the 
fate  not  unusual  with  pioneers.      ^ 

Others  who  followed  the  trail  hewn  with  so  much 
difficulty,  when  it  had  become  a  fashionable  prome- 
nade, are  better  known  today;  but  the  impartial  his- 
torian of  the  future  will  restore  their  due  meed  of 

honor  to  the  pioneers. 

[iii] 


S^'^i  i^xl 


IV  PREFATORY  NOTE  OF  THE   EXECUTOR. 

Mrs.  Dall  had  left  a  copy  of  this  book  arranged 
with  the  addenda  she  wished  included  in  the  present 
limited  memorial  edition,  which,  in  accordance  with 
her  directions,  is  an  exact  reprint  of  the  copy  thus 
prepared.  To  Mr.  W.  S.  Rossiter  of  the  Rumford 
Press,  who  is  responsible  for  the  care  and  accuracy 
of  the  reproduction,  are  due  the  thanks  of  the  reader 
and  of  the  executor. 


CAROLINE  HEALEY   DALL. 


By  James  Redpath. 
[Published  about  1866] 

Mrs.  Dall  is  now  recognized  both  in  England  and 
America  as  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  judicious  de- 
finers  and  defenders  of  woman's  rights  that  the  sex 
has  hitherto  contributed  to  the  upbuilding  and  the 
vindication  of  its  own  cause.  I  say  definers  and  de- 
fenders, for  an  inability  to  define  what  woman's 
rights  are  has  been  of  even  greater  injury  to  this  re- 
markable movement  than  the  course  of  its  injudicious 
defenders.  That,  with  all  the  want  of  discrimination 
and  want  of  discretion  exhibited  on  the  part  of  its 
champions,  this  cause  should  still  have  made  such 
striking  progress,  is  one  of  the  most  notable  signs 
of  the  age  we  live  in.  It  shows,  as  a  thousand  other 
events  have  shown,  that  our  self-styled  leaders  are 
only  exponents  of  thoughts  familiar  to  the  minds  of 
multitudes,  which  are  neither  changed  nor  silenced 
by  the  inconsistency  and  unwisdom  of  conspicuous 
advocates. 

Mrs.  Dall  was  the  daughter  of  Mr.  Mark  Healey,  a 
well-known  India  merchant  of  Boston.  She  was 
born  and  educated  in  this  city,  and  had  every  advan- 
tage that  wealth  could  give  in  acquiring  knowledge 

[V] 


VI  CAROLINE    HEALEY   DALL. 

and  skill  in  the  use  of  it.  She  learned  the  several 
modern  languages,  and  the  '* outlines"  of  many  others 
and,  at  the  age  of  thirteen,  began  to  write  for  the 
newspapers.  She  always  wrote  on  moral  or  religious 
subjects.  Since  that  time,  without  interruption,  she 
has  continued  to  contribute  to  the  press;  and  she  has 
probably  discussed  a  greater  variety  of  topics  and 
covered  a  wider  range  of  subjects,  than  any  other 
American  woman.  From  reviewing  cook  books  to 
analyzing  Bunson's  Egyptology;  from  inditing  stories 
for  the  youngest  children  to  exchanging  views  on 
social  science  with  eminent  publicists, — this  tireless 
student  has  fulfilled  every  duty  that  can  devolve 
on  a  professional  writer  for  the  press. 

Her  first  book  was  published  in  1849.  It  was  a 
series  of  moral  and  religious  essays,  which  she  had 
used  in  the  course  of  Sunday  school  instruction.  It 
was  written  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  but  published  much 
later.  This  little  book  is  chiefly  remarkable  today 
as  containing  a  disclaimer  of  woman's  rights.  As 
the  highest  moral  point  of  view  that  most  men  reach 
in  their  lives  is  no  more  than  the  ground  from  which 
earnest  students  start  in  their  early  youth,  it  is  quite 
possible  that  the  ideas  which  Mrs.  Dall  threw  away 
twenty  years  ago  may  furnish  excellent  food  for  old 
children  today.  So,  as  food  for  babes,  I  quote  from 
an  essay  on  "Reform 


>> , 


"There  is  no  modem  reform  that  we  take  so  little  interest  in 
as  the  movement  in  regard  to  the  rights  of  women.     It  is  true 


CAROLINE  HEALEY  DALL.  VU 

that  there  have  been  moments  in  our  life  when  we  would  have 
given  worlds  to  have  sat  for  an  instant  on  the  bench,  to  have 
thrown  one  vote  in  the  national  assembly,  to  have  spoken  one 
hour  at  a  caucus,  or  have  held  a  governor's  commission  just  long 
enough  to  freely  resign  it.  But  while  the  hot  torrent  of  our 
blood  asked  for  this,  we  never  for  a  moment  supposed  that  the 
court  room,  the  council  hall  or  the  caucus  was  a  proper  place 
for  us.  We  only  felt  that  if  the  men  of  our  country  had  dwindled 
into  caitiffs,  it  had  the  more  need  of  her  women.  The  business 
of  our  country  and  our  age,  it  has  been  most  truly  said,  is  to 
organize  the  rights  of  man.  One  of  the  holiest  of  his  rights  is 
to  find  woman  in  her  proper  place.  It  is  he  who  is  robbed  by  a 
wrong  condition  of  things.  We  doubt  very  much  whether  Prov- 
idence ever  intended  that  woman  should  personally  share  the 
duties  of  the  commonwealth.  We  feel  that  this  is  utterly  in- 
compatible with  the  more  precious  and  positive  duties  of  the 
nursery  and  the  fireside.  But  we  long  for  the  time  to  come  when 
a  finished  education  shall  be  everywoman's  birthright;  when  the 
respect  of  the  other  sex  shall  be  her  legitimate  inheritance;  when 
the  woman  of  any  rank  will  be  able  to  obtain  a  livelihood  for  her- 
self or  her  children  without  overtasking  the  generosity  of  man; 
when  she  shall  no  longer  find  herself,  even  for  a  moment,  a  tool 
or  a  plaything.  We  would  wiUingly  listen  to  her  voice  in  the 
religious  assembly,  for  we  have  seen  the  soul  of  a  'sister  friend' 
more  exquisitely  and  visibly  illuminated  by  the  Divine  Spirit  than 
that  of  any  preacher  to  whom  we  have  ever  listened;  and  we  are 
not  surprised  that  in  the  present  state  of  the  world  a  woman's 
soul  should  frequently  be  found  the  fittest  receptacle  for  the  love 
and  righteousness  of  Christ." 

This  little  book,  however,  is  reformatory  in  every 
direction  excepting  toward  the  ballot-box. 

In  her  girlhood  Miss  Healey  was  noted  for  her 
interest  in  the  poor,  and  was  constantly  found  in 
their  houses  in  the  most  wretched  quarters  of  the 
city.  Her  fidelity  and  fearlessness  in  exploring  the 
abodes  of  poverty  and  sin  in  search  of  her  scholars 


Vlll  CAROLINE   HEALEY   DALL. 

and  self -adopted  wards  is  rarely  equalled  or  imitated 
by  the  youth  of  either  sex,  and  indeed  would  be  unsafe 
for  any  to  emulate  except  those  who  are  born  to  be 
missionaries. 

In  1844  she  was  married  to  Rev.  Charles  Dall,  then 
a  Unitarian  minister  at  Baltimore.  This  union 
tended  to  develop  what,  in  consideration  of  her  an- 
cestry, may  well  be  regarded  as  her  innate  tendencies 
— a  special  aptitude  for  Biblical  and  Oriental  scholar- 
ships. For  Mrs.  Dall  had  descended  through  an  al- 
most unbroken  line  of  clergymen  for  fully  three  cen- 
turies, and  numbers  among  her  ancestors  on  both 
sides  William  Whittingham,  the  translator  of  th(^ 
Geneva  Bible,  who,  by  his  marriage  with  Katherine 
Calvin,  was  the  brother-in-law  of  John  Calvin.  Whit- 
tingham was  Dean  of  Durham,  and  was  noted  for 
his  zeal  in  destroying  church  images  and  monuments 
in  the  reign  of  Mary.  After  living  some  years  in 
Baltimore  and  elsewhere,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dall  removed 
to  Toronto,  Canada.  The  only  surviving  son  is 
WilHam  H.  Dall  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution, 
who  is  now  (1866)  at  the  head  of  an  exploring  expe- 
dition in  the  Arctic  regions. 

When  in  Baltimore  and  in  Washington,  in  1842, 
Mrs.  Dall  first  became  practically  familiar  with  slav- 
ery, and  manifested  her  interest  in  it  by  teaching  the 
negroes  to  read — thereby  making  herself  amenable 
to  the  laws  of  both  State  and  District.  She  also 
made  the  first  census  of  free  colored  people  in  the 
district,  in  order  to  organize  schools  for  them.     Dur- 


CAROLINE    HEALEY   DALL.  IX 

ing  her  residence  of  some  years  in  the  South  she  took 
a  constant  interest  in  the  slaves,  and  contributed  to 
northern  papers  descriptions  of  slavery  as  it  was.  She 
began  her  annual  contributions  to  the  "Liberty  Bell'' 
in  1850. 

When  in  Toronto,  Mrs.  Dall  was  corresponding 
editor  of  the  ''Una,"  a  woman's  paper  published  at 
Providence,  Rhode  Island.  She  furnished  literary 
articles  chiefly,  and  occasionally  papers  on  the 
"woman  question."  At  Toronto,  also,  she  was  the 
agent  of  a  society  for  assisting  fugitives  from  slavery, 
and  she  records  that  in  a  single  year,  of  four  hundred 
negroes  who  passed  through  her  office,  not  one  re- 
turned to  ask  a  second  time  for  help.^ 

In  1855  she  assisted  to  call  a  convention  in  Boston, 
to  discuss  the  subject  of  woman's  rights,  and  brought 
in  a  report  on  the  laws  relating  to  women,  as  they 
stood  on  the  statute  books  of  Massachusetts,  and  the 
other  New  England  States.  This  was  her  first  pub- 
lic contribution  to  the  cause  in  which  she  has  since 
become  so  conspicuous.  Her  earliest  sympathies 
had  been  aroused  when  a  girl  by  finding,  on  consult- 
ing John  W.  Brown,  an  eminent  lawyer  in  his  day, 
in  behalf  of  a  poor  woman,  that,  although  she  sup- 
ported with  her  own  earnings  her  family  of  seven  chil- 
dren, yet  she  could  not  be  protected  from  the  robbery 
of  her  drunken  husband  when  he  insisted  on  seizing 
the  money  laid  aside  for  her  rent  to  buy  liquor. 
Miss  Bremer  as  late  as  1850  felt  grieved  that  Mrs. 
Dall  took  so  little  interest  in  the  matter  of  suffrage. 


X  CAROLINE    HE  ALE  Y   DALL. 

She  came  gradually  to  see  its  importance  as  a  means 
and  its  necessity  as  a  recognition.  SW  believes  no 
party  will  ever  care  to  burden  itself  with  reforma- 
tory questions  until  a  sense  of  necessity  drives  it  to 
consider  t'hem.  Women  voters  alone,  who  acutely 
feel  the  wrongs  done  to  their  sex,  will  ever  compel 
reluctant  legislators  to  redress  them. 

In  1855  Mr.  Dall  went  as  a  missionary  to  Calcutta. 
Since  that  time,  even  more  largely  than  before,  Mrs. 
Dall  has  been  a  voluminous  contributor  to  newspapers 
and  magazines  both  at  home  and  abroad.  Over 
one  field  of  reform  she  has  made  herself  a  sleepless 
sentinel, — ^that  is,  over  all  that  concerns  the  interests, 
duties,  and  rights  of  woman;  and  for  years  she  has 
suffered  no  author  or  journal  of  any  eminence  to  slur, 
misrepresent,  or  dwarf  the  cause  without  sending  a 
word-bullet  whizzing  in  that  direction.  Of  course 
such  fidelity  has  aroused  a  host  of  antagonists;  for 
it  is  a  peculiarity  of  human  nature  not  to  like  to  be 
shot  at,  and  Mrs.  Dall  has  a  wonderful  talent  for 
hitting  what  she  aims  at.  She  has  probably  disturbed 
more  self-complacent  conservation — or  the  half-inso- 
lence and  half-laziness  which  assumes  that  title — 
than  any  other  woman  now  living. 

After  this  time  Mrs.  Dall  called  a  number  of  con- 
ventions in  different  years  to  follow  up  the  first 
meeting  and  discuss  woman's  rights.  She  had  the 
entire  management  and  responsibility  of  these  meet- 
ings. Her  own  first  series  of  lectures  were  sketches 
of  female  character,  which  were  received  with  general 


CAROLINE  HEALEY  DALL.  XI 

satisfaction.  They  have  not  been  published <  In 
the  following  winter  she  delivered  a  second  series  on 
Woman's  Right  to  Education;  in  the  winter  of  1861 
she  gave  a  third  series  on  Woman's  Right  to  Labor; 
and  in  1862  she  concluded  her  course  by  three  lectures 
on  Woman's  Rights  under  the  Law.  These  lectures 
were  many  times  repeated  and  soon  afterwards  were 
published  as  little  books,  and  they  have  since  reap- 
peared, revised  and  enlarged,  in  the  volume  recently 
published  by  Lee  &  Shepard,  entitled:  "The  College, 
the  Market  and  the  Court;  or.  Woman's  Relation  to 
Education,  Labor  and  Law."  These  lectures  were 
thoroughly  successful,  and  established  the  position  of 
the  author  in  the  foremost  rank  of  the  advocates  of 
these  questions. 

During  these  years,  and  ever  since,  Mrs.  Dall  has 
lectured  in  New  England  and  the  West  on  Woman's 
Rights,  Biblical  Criticism,  Egyptology,  and  other 
topics,  and  has  often  filled  the  pulpits  of  Unitarian 
churches  in  different  sections  of  the  North.  She 
takes  the  whole  service  herself,  and  is  regarded  as 
one  of  our  ablest  and  most  erudite  Biblical  critics. 
There  is  certainly  no  other  American  woman  who 
publishes  anything  by  which  her  learning  can  be 
gauged,  who  knows  so  much  about  philology,  archae- 
ology, Oriental  history  and  languages,  and  the  results 
of  modern  Biblical  criticism.  It  is  believed  that  she 
was  provoked  into  lecturing  on  these  topics  by  hear- 
ing some  of  our  prominent  clergymen  give  utterance 
to  the  most  crude  exploded  expositions  of  Oriental 


Xll  CABOLINE    HE  ALE  Y   DALL. 

history.  On  these  subjects  she  has  contributed 
largely  to  quarterly  reviews  and  religious  magazines 
both  in  England  and  the  United  States. 

Her  other  works  are  a ''Life  of  Marie  E.  Zakrzew- 
ska,  M.D.";  ''Historical  Pictures  Retouched"  (vindi- 
cations, for  the  most  part,  of  eminent  women — as 
Aspasia  and  Sappho  among  the  ancients,  and  Mary 
Wollstonecraft  among  the  moderns);  "Sunshine:  a 
new  name  for  a  popular  lecture  on  Health";  and 
"Egypt's  Place  in  History:  a  presentation" — that 
is  to  say,  of  Bunsen's  great  book  with  the  same  title. 
This  last  production  is  a  pamphlet  in  which  the  re- 
sults of  Bunsen's  herculean  labors  are  stated  with  a 
conciseness  and  power  which  came  from  a  constant 
study  of  the  bulky  original  work  for  more  than  two 
years. 

In  addition  to  her  work  as  a  writer  and  lecturer, 
Mrs.  Dall  has  taken  an  active  part  for  many  years 
in  Sunday  schools.  She  was  the  first  to  move  in  the 
formation  of  the  Social  Science  Association,  and  has 
had  several  classes  of  adults  in  philology,  biblical 
criticism,  Shakespeare  and  Herodotus.  She  is  also  a 
diligent  worker  in  various  methods  of  organized  char- 
ity; and  at  home,  as  her  multitudinous  writings  show, 
she  is  a  tireless  and  conscientious  student.* 

*  There  should  be  some  record  of  the  Association  for  Social  Science,  of 
Annual  Legal  Reports,  of  Anti-Slavery  work,  and  my  many  Parker  Conven- 
tions at  one  of  which  the  death  of  Parker  was  announced.  Also  that  it  was 
due  to  myself  and  Jno.  A.  Andrew  that  the  Social  Science  Association  was 
started. — C.  H.  Dall. 


<^e^.^-^^i.,J^    /c/.  S^r:^-^^i^ 


From  a  photograph  taken  about  1872. 


CAROLINE    HEALEY   DALL.  XIU 

From  "A  Manual  of  American  Literature." 

Mrs.  Caroline  Healey  Dall,  has  written  numerous 
books  and  pamphlets  on  subjects  connected  with 
social  and  political  reform,  and  particularly  on  the 
subject  of  woman's  rights.  Her  productions  have 
been  marked  by  point  and  vigor,  and  show  various 
reading  and  scholarship,  as  well  as  cultivated  taste. 
She  has  not  sought  publicity,  yet  has  not  shrunk  from 
it  when  loyalty  to  truth  and  duty  has  seemed  to  her 
to  call  for  public  action,  whether  through  the  press 
or  on  the  platform. 

Mrs.  Dall  is  the  wife  of  a  Unitarian  minister,  Rev. 
Charles  Dall,  and  daughter  of  Mr.  Mark  Healey,  an 
India  merchant  of  Boston.  She  was  bom  and  edu- 
cated in  that  city,  and  at  present  resides  there,  al- 
though she  has  lived  at  different  times  in  Baltimore, 
Washington,  and  Toronto.  The  following  is  a  list 
of  her  pubHcations:  Essays  and  Sketches;  Woman's 
Right  to  Labor;  Life  of  Dr.  Marie  Zakrzewska; 
Historical  Pictures  Retouched,  a  correction  of  errors 
involving  much  labor;  Old  Testament  Lectures; 
Sunshine,  a  lecture;  The  College,  The  Market  and 
The  Court;  Egypt,  a  presentation  of  Bunsen;  A  Re- 
port on  the  Laws  of  Massachusetts;  A  Report  on  a 
Horticultural  School  for  Reformed  Women;  Several 
annual  reports  on  women's  education,  labor,  and  civil 
position;  Essays  on  Confucius,  on  Biblical  Criticism, 
etc.;  Patty  Gray's  Journey,  3  vols. 

The  book  first  named  was  written  at  the  age  of 


XIV  CAKOLINE    HEALEY   DALL. 

sixteen,  though  not  pubhshed  until  seven  years 
later,  in  1849.  It  consisted  of  a  series  of  moral  and 
religious  essays,  written  originally  for  her  own  use 
in  her  Sunday  school  class. 

Mrs.  Dall  has  the  reputation  of  being  a  tireless  and 
conscientious  student.  In  addition  to  her  work  as  a 
writer  and  a  lecturer,  she  has  taken  an  active  part  in 
Sunday  schools  and  in  various  schemes  of  organized 
charity,  and  has  had  several  classes  of  adults  in  philol- 
ogy. Biblical  criticism,  Herodotus,  and  Shakespeare. 
—By  John  S.  Hart,  LL.D.,  Philadelphia,  1873. 

From  ''Moulton's  Women  of  the  Century." 

Dall,  Mrs. Caroline  Healey,  author,  born  in  Bos- 
ton, Mass.,  22nd  June,  1822.  She  was  a  daughter  of 
the  late  Mark  Healey.  She  was  educated  thoroughly 
by  governesses,  and  at  a  private  finishing  school;  after 
reverses  of  fortune  in  1841  she  became  a  teacher. 
In  1842  she  entered  Miss  English's  school  for  young 
ladies,  in  Georgetown,  D.  C,  as  vice"  principal.  In 
1844  she  became  the  wife  of  Rev.  Charles  Henry 
Appleton  Dall.  She  kept  up  her  studies  and  literary 
work  uninterruptedly.  Her  earlier  literary  produc- 
tions were  principally  on  reform  subjects  and  the  open- 
ing of  new  spheres  of  occupation  to  women.  Her 
later  productions  have  been  purely  literary  and  criti- 
cal.    In  1877,  being  the  first  woman  in  modern  times 


CAROLINE  HEALEY  DALL.  XV 

to  receive  it,  she  received  the  degree  of  LL.D.  from 
the  Alfred  University,  Alfred,  N.  Y.  Much  of  her 
activity  has  been  in  the  cause  of  woman's  rights. 
Her  books  are  numerous  and  important.  They  in- 
clude ''Essays  and  Sketches"  (1849);  ''Historical 
Pictures  Retouched"  (1859);  "Woman's  Right  to 
Labor"  (1860);  "Life  of  Dr.  Marie  Zakrzewska" 
(1860);  "Woman's  Rights  under  the  Law"  (1861);, 
"Sunshine"  (1864);  "The  College,  the  Market  and 
the  Court"  (1867);  "Egypt's  Place  in  History" 
(1868) ;  "  Patty  Gray's  Journey  to  the  Cotton  Islands," 
3  Vols.  (1869  and  1870);  "Romance  of  the  Associa- 
tion" (1875);  "My  First  Holiday"  (1881);  "What  we 
really  know  about  Shakespeare"  (1885),  and  "The 
Pubhc  Life  of  Dr.  Anandabai  Joshee"  (1888),  all 
published  in  Boston.  Mrs.  Dall's  works  have  found 
a  wide  sale  and  attracted  the  attention  of  critics  every- 
where. She  was  the  original  mover  for  the  Social' 
Science  Association  with  Governor  Emery  Washburn 
and  Dr.  Samuel  Eliot  as  helpers,  and  has  read  many 
papers  before  that  body.  She  was  in  1854  associated 
with  Paulina  Wright  Davis  in  the  management  of 
"Una,'*  the  woman's  rights  journal,  in  Boston.  Her 
lectures  were  scholarly  and  profound.  Her  husband 
was  a  Unitarian  clergyman,  and  died  18th  July,  1886, 
in  Calcutta,  British  India,  where  he  had  been  for- 
thirty-one  years  a  missionary. 


xvi  cakoline  healey  dall. 

From  ''Songs  and  Singers  of  the  Liberal  Faith," 
A.  P.  Putnam,  1875. 

Mrs.  Caroline  H.  Dall,  wife  of  Rev.  Charles  H.  A. 
Dall,  was  Caroline  Wells  Healey,  daughter  of  Mark 
and  Caroline  (Foster)  Healey.  She  was  born  in 
Green  Street,  Boston,  in  which  city  her  father  was  a 
prominent  India  merchant.  Inheriting  the  blood  of 
many  of  the  old  Massachusetts  Bay  families,  of 
Winthrop,  Dudley,  Rogers,  Bradstreet,  and  Symonds, 
she  traces  her  lineage  back  through  an  almost  un- 
broken line  of  clergymen  for  fully  three  centuries, 
and  numbers  among  her  ancestors,  on  both  sides, 
William  Whittingham,  the  translator  of  the  Geneva 
Bible,  and  Katherine  Jacqueman,  his  wife,  heiress 
of  Turvyle  and  Gouteron,  whose  only  sister  was 
Idolette  de  Bure,  the  wife  of  John  Calvin.  She 
early  learned  the  modern  languages  and  began  to 
write  for  the  newspapers  when  only  thirteen  years  of 
age.  Her  first  book,  consisting  of  moral  and  religious 
essays  which  she  had  used  in  the  course  of  Sunday 
school  instruction,  was  published  in  1849,  and  was 
written  when  she  was  but  sixteen.  She  was  married 
to  Mr.  Dall  while  he  was  miniver  at  Baltimore,  where 
with  him  she  became  much  interested  in  the  slaves, 
made  a  first  census  of  the  free  colored  people  of  the 
District  of  Columbia  where  she  resided  for  a  year 
before  her  marriage,  taught  the  negroes  how  to  read, 
and  contributed  articles  on  the  general  subject  to  the 
Northern  journals.  She  began  her  annual  contribu- 
tions to  the  ''Liberty  Bell"  in  1850;  at  Toronto,  was 


CAROLINE    HE  ALE  Y   DALL.  XVll 

corresponding  editor  of  the  "Una,"  a  woman's  paper, 
published  at  Providence,  R.  I.,  and  was  the  agent  of 
a  society  for  assisting  fugitives  from  slavery;  in  1855 
aided  in  calling  many  Conventions  in  Boston  to  dis- 
cuss the  Rights  of  Woman,  and  brought  in  reports  on 
the  laws  relating  thereto  of  the  several  New  England 
States;  and  afterwards,  during  successive  winters, 
gave  series  of  lectures  upon  topics  connected  with 
the  new  reform,  that  were  first  given  to  the  press  in 
various  small  books,  and  that  were  still  later  collected, 
revised,  and  enlarged,  and  issued  by  Lee  &  Shepard 
in  a  single  volume,  under  the  title,  ''The  College,  the 
Market,  and  the  Court;  or,  Woman's  Relation  to 
Education,  Labor,  and  Law."  Her  other  works  are 
a  ''Life  of  Marie  E.  Zakrzewska,  M.D.";  "Historical 
Pictures  Retouched";  "Sunshine:  A  New  Name  for 
a  Popular  Lecture  on  Health";  and  "Egypt's  Place 
in  History."  The  last  is  a  pamphlet  in  which  the 
authoress  gives  a  concise  statement  of  the  results  of 
Bunsen's  herculean  labors  as  they  are  presented  in 
his  great  work  bearing  the  same  title. 

In  addition  to  these  philanthropic  labors  and  liter- 
ary productions,  are  to  be  mentioned  her  continued 
interest  and  service  in  Sunday  schools,  her  life-long 
devotion  to  the  poor  and  suffering  children  in  Boston, 
her  instruction  of  classes  of  adults  in  philology, 
biblical  criticism,  Shakespeare,  and  Herodotus,  her 
agency  in  the  formation  of  the  Social  Science  Associ- 
ation, her  frequent  preaching  in  Unitarian  pulpits, 
and    her    numerous  lectures   and  periodical   contri- 

2 


XVlll  CAROLINE    HEALEY   DALL.  * 

butions  other  than  those  which  have  been  referred 
to.  Her  writings  attest  her  superior  intellectual 
ability  and  her  ample  range  of  learning,  while  she 
is  a  recognized  leader  in  organized  charities,  and  in 
various  other  enterprises  or  movements  that  seek 
the  general  welfare.  She  still  continues  her  work  of 
usefulness  in  the  city  in  which  she  was  born,  and 
in  which  she  has  resided  since  her  husband  went  to 
India. 

Like  so  many. others  of  whom  we  have  given  some 
account  in  this  volume,  and  who  are  known  chiefly 
as  prose  writers,  Mrs.  Dall  has  given  us  some  good 
verses. 

From  "The  Alfred  Student." 

November,  1877. 
(Written  by  President  A.  A.  Allen.)* 

It  may  be  unusual  to  trace  the  pattern  of  a  life 
before  the  web  is  finished,  for  not  till  then  is  its  plan 
revealed,  or  its  true  meaning  accomplished.     Yet  an 

♦This  paper  was  written  at  the  time  my  degree  of  LL.D.  was  given  me  by 
Alfred  to  make  me  better  known  to  the  Alumni.  I  never  saw  or  heard  of  it. 
Mrs.  Allen  found  it  when  collecting  materials  after  her  husband's  death  and 
thought  it  strange  that  I  had  never  spoken  of  it.  She  sent  the  original  for  me 
to  examine.  I  replied  by  a  letter,  asking  where  they  got  the  material  for  the 
paper,  as  facts  were  exact  whatever  might  be  thought  of  the  opinion.  The  letter 
appended  is  a  copy  of  her  response.  Prest.  Allen's  estimate  entirely  omits 
my  Social  Science  Work.  It  also  omits  my  Canada  work,  my  five  or  six 
conventions,  and  annual  Reports  on  laws  of  New  England  for  many  years.  It 
does  not  cover  the  whole  ground  of  my  education. 

C.  H.  DALL. 

October,  1893. 


CAROLINE    HEALEY   DALL.  XIX 

intense  admiration  for  one  who  may  be  termed  the 
advocate  of  woman  everywhere  and  in  all  stations  in 
life,  is  my  apology,  if  one  is  needed.  The  life  of  Caro- 
line Healey  Dall — lived  thus  far  to  such  a  noble 
purpose — can  but  draw  us  to  a  brief  study  of  its  aims, 
and  allure  to  aspirations  to  become  co-workers  with 
one  so  eminent  in  achievements  for  the  cause  of 
truth. 

Mrs.  Dall  is  the  daughter  of  Mark  Healey,  a  well- 
known  India  merchant  of  Boston.  She  was  bom 
and  educated  in  that  city,  enjoying  every  facility 
that  wealth  could  afford  in  acquiring  knowledge  and 
skill  in  using  it.  She  learned  several  modern  lan- 
guages, and  the  *^ outlines"  of  many  others — and  when 
she  was  thirteen  began  to  write  for  the  press,  which 
she  has  continued  to  do  ever  since.  Her  first  book 
was  written  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  and  published 
seven  years  after,  in  1849. 

In  her  girlhood.  Miss  Healey  was  noted  for  her 
interest  in  the  poor,  and  she  frequented  their  dwell- 
ings in  the  most  wretched  quarters  of  the  city.  Her 
fidelity  and  fearlessness  in  exploring  the  abodes  of 
poverty  and  .sin,  in  search  of  her  scholars  and  self- 
adopted  wards,  is  rarely  equaled  or  imitated  by  the 
youth  of  either  sex,  and,  indeed,  would  be  unsafe  for 
any  to  emulate  save  those  who  are  born  to  be  mis- 
sionaries. 

In  1844,  she  was  married  to  the  Rev.  Charles  Dall, 
a  Unitarian  minister  at  Baltimore.  This  union 
tended  to  develop  what,  in  consideration  of  her  an- 


XX  CAROLINE    HE  ALE  Y   DALL. 

cestry,  may  well  be  regarded  as  her  innate  tendency — 
a  special  aptitude  for  Biblical  and  Oriental  scholar- 
ship, for  Mrs.  Dall  had  descended  for  full  three  cen- 
turies through  an  almost  unbroken  line  of  clergymen, 
and  has  said  that  she  knew  very  well  where  her  natural 
sphere  of  work  lay,  and  could  she  have  had  a  theo- 
logical education  in  her  youth,  or  if  the  paths  of  the 
ministry  had  been  open  to  women,  she  would  now 
have  been  a  settled  minister;  as  it  was,  it  never  en- 
tered her  mind  that  the  thing  was  possible.  However, 
in  the  first  year  of  her  marriage,  her  husband,  while 
employed  in  missionary  labor  in  the  city,  was  taken  ill, 
at  which  time  he  was  holding  day-schools  for  girls 
and  women,  and  night-schools  for  boys  and  men. 
It  fell  to  her  lot  not  only  to  nurse  him,  but  to  take 
charge  of  his  night-school,  and  also  his  Sunday  serv- 
ices. He  did  not  find  a  small  congregation  when 
he  resumed  his  place,  and  that  was  her  reward. 
Since  that  time,  she  has  often  filled  the  pulpits  of 
Unitarian  churches  in  different  sections  of  the  North 
.and  West.  She  conducts  the  entire  services,  accept- 
ing no  assistance  in  reading  or  prayer,  feeling  that 
it  is  not  well  for  a  woman  who  fills  the  pulpit  to  per- 
mit them  to  be  broken  by  alien  influences. 

When  in  Baltimore  and  Washington,  Mrs.  Dall 
first  became  practically  familiar  with  slavery,  and 
manifested  her  interest  in  the  degradation  of  the  race 
by  teaching  the  negroes  to  read.  She  made  the  first 
census  of  free  colored  people  in  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia, in  order  to  organize  schools  for  them,  and  con- 


CAROLINE  HEALEY  DALL.  XXI 

tributed  to  northern  papers  descriptions  of  slavery 
as  it  was.  She  began  her  annual  contributions  to 
the  '^ Liberty  Bell"  in  1852.  When  in  Toronto,  she 
was  corresponding  editor  of  the  ''Una,"  a  woman's 
paper  published  at  Providence,  R.  I.;  she  was  also 
agent  of  a  society  for  assisting  fugitives  from  slavery; 
and  she  records:  ''Of  four  hundred  negroes  who 
passed  through  her  office  in  a  year,  not  one  returned 
to  ask  assistance." 

In  1855,  her  husband  went  as  a  missionary  to  Cal- 
cutta. Since  then,  even  more  largely  than  before, 
she  has  been  a  voluminous  contributor  to  newspapers, 
and  magazines,  both  at  home  and  abroad.  Over  one 
field  of  reform  she  has  made  herself  a  sleepless  senti- 
nel— ^that  is,  over  all  that  concerns  the  interests, 
duties,  and  rights  of  woman.  For  years  she  has 
suffered  no  author  or  journal  of  any  eminence  to 
slur,  misrepresent,  or  dwarf  the  cause,  without  send- 
ing a  word-bullet  whizzing  in  that  direction.  Of 
course  such  fidelity  has  aroused  a  host  of  antagonists, 
for  it  is  a  peculiarity  of  human  nature  not  to  like  to 
be  shot  at,  and  Mrs.  Dall  has  a  wonderful  talent  for 
hitting  that  at  which  she  aims.  She  has  probably 
disturbed  more  self-complacent  conservatism,  or  the 
half-insolence  and  half-laziness  which  assumes  that 
title,  than  any  other  woman  now  living.  Her  first 
series  of  lectures  were  sketches  of  female  character, 
but  were  not  published. 

In  1858,  she  delivered  a  second  series  on  Woman's 
Right  to  Education;  in  the  winter  of  1861,  she  gave 


XXll  CAROLINE    HE  ALE  Y   DALL. 

a  third  series  on  Woman's  Right  to  Labor;  and  in 
1862,  she  concluded  her  course  by  three  lectures  on 
Woman's  Rights  under  the  Law.  These  lectures  were 
often  repeated,  and  afterward  published  in  little 
books,  and  have  since  reappeared,  revised  and  en- 
larged, in  the  volume  entitled,  "The  College,  the 
Market,  and  the  Court,  or  Woman's  Relation  to  Edu- 
cation, Labor,  and  Law.'* 

Her  other  writings  are  very  numerous,  but  we  will 
mention  only  ''Patty  Gray's  Journey,"  an  interesting 
and  instructive  work  for  children,  to  which  she  has 
given  much  attention,  consisting  of  three  volumes. 
It  was  to  have  been  published  in  six  but  owing  to 
difficulties  with  her  publishers  the  last  three  have 
never  been  printed.  "Egypt's  Place  in  History,"  a 
presentation,  that  is  to  say,  of  Bunsen's  great  book 
with  the  same  title,  followed — a  pamphlet  in  which 
the  results  of  Bunsen's  herculean  labors  are  stated 
with  a  conciseness  and  power  which  came  from  a 
constant  study  for  more  than  two  years  of  the  bulky 
original.  She  has  probably  discussed  a  greater  vari- 
ety of  topics  and  covered  a  wider  range  of  subjects 
than  any  other  American  woman;  and  there  is  cer- 
tainly no  other  by  whom  her  learning  can  be  gauged, 
who  knows  so  much  of  philology,  archaeology,  Ori- 
ental history  and  languages,  and  the  results  of  modem 
Biblical  criticism. 

Mrs.  Dall  truly  holds  the  pen  of  a  ready  writer. 
Her  depth  of  culture  and  versatility  of  talent  make 
her   perfect   mistress  of  the  English  language.     She 


CAROLINE    HEALEY   DALL.  XXIU 

never  uses  a  word  that  will  not  strengthen  or  clear  the 
thought  expressed;  and  what  she  utters  is  from  the 
need  of  its  being  said,  whether  in  the  interests  of 
learned  research,  or  the  instruction  and  entertainment 
of  the  young;  in  matters  relating  to  the  practical 
economies  of  life,  or  in  furtherance  of  the  great  cause 
to  which  she  has  especially  devoted  herself.  She  thus 
impresses  her  hearers  or  readers  with  respect,  both 
for  her  subject  and  herself.  She  realizes  the  suf- 
ferings of  humanity,  and  also  the  high  possibili- 
ties of  happiness  within  its  reach;  hence,  her  earnest 
sympathy  has  been  freely  given  in  words  and  works 
to  help  every  form  of  human  woe.  To  one  asking 
counsel,  when  in  agony  of  doubt  as  to  duty,  she  writes : 
''Go  forward,  take  the  first  step,  and  God  will  show 
you  the  next."  Mrs.  Dall  has  been  untiring  in  elabo- 
rating every  subject  to  which  her  attention  has  been 
given,  spending  months  in  working  up  statistics,  and 
when  they  were  complete,  using  them  to  the  best  ad- 
vantage. What  would  have  been,  in  the  hands  of 
common  historians,  dry,  prosaic  facts,  became,  by 
her  masterly  touch,  the  bold  outlines  of  a  grand 
panorama,  in  which  hupaan  beings  move  and  hearts 
palpitate.  The  most  stupid  and  careless  cannot  read 
her  pages  without  becoming  thoughtful,  and  the 
thoughtful  are  spontaneously  moved  to  action. 

Today  her  position  is  in  the  front  ranks  of  those 
who  labor  for  the  elevation  of  woman,  where  she  stands 
with  a  serene  confidence  in  the  onward  march  and 
final  triumph  of  grand  ideas  she  has  so  long  and  un- 


XXIV  CAROLINE    HEALEY   DALL. 

falteringly  held  up  to  the  public.  Her  work  on 
Woman's  Rights  has  been  so  exhaustive  in  logic  and 
facts  that  it  has  been  a  golden  fountain  from  which 
most  of  the  later  writers  and  lecturers  have  drawn, 
often  without  so  much  as  ''By  your  leave,  Madam." 
Her  labor  has  been  very  influential  in  opening  the 
doors  of  colleges  to  woman;  but  still  she  says,  ''It  is 
true  that  the  mere  means  of  education  is  open  to  some 
extent  for  woman,  but  education  itself  is  not  won  for 
her  till  it  brings  her  precisely  the  same  blessings  that 
it  bears  to  the  feet  of  man;  till  it  gives  her  honor, 
respect,  and  bread;  till  position  becomes  the  rightful 
inheritance  of  capacity,  and  social  influence  follows 
a  knowledge  of  mathematics  and  the  languages." 
Mrs.  Dall  is  endowed  by  nature  with  an  exquisite  sense 
of  order  and  fitness  that  pervades  her  entire  being 
and  governs  all  her  acts,  thus  making  her  life  the 
richest,  grandest  volume  of  all  that  she  has  presented 
to  the  world.  Tliousands  working  in  avenues  opened 
by  her  earnest  efforts  will  rise  up  to  call  her  blessed. 


A  PART  OF  A  LETTER  WRITTEN  TO  MRS.  DALL  AT  THE 

TIME  OF  DR.  Allen's  death. 

President  Allen  took  a  deep  interest  in  every  ques- 
tion for  the  uplifting  of  woman;  but  when  he  heard 
constantly  your  thought  and  very  words  used,  and 
statistics  given  as  original  that  had  cost  you  so  much 
time  and  unremitting  toil,  his  sense  of  justice  was 


CAROLINE    HE ALEY    DALL.  XX\r 

outraged.  They  were  stealing  your  timber  for  the 
building  of  their  temples. 

He  was  greatly  surprised  when  I  told  him  that  you 
had  not  been  consulted  about  the  forming  of  our 
''Woman's  Congress"  in  Seventy-three. 

You  know  that  your  advanced  thought  was  in  har- 
mony with  his;  and  then  your  versatility  of  interests 
in  all  departments  of  human  history,  and  on  so  many 
lines  of  work,  called  forth  his  great  admiration.  Not 
half  the  LL.D.'s  were  as  deep  students  of  Law  (in  its 
highest  sense)  as  you. 

It  is  very  hard  to  think  that  you  may  not  be  in 
Alfred  again,  but  harder  to  think  that  I  must  remain.. 


THE   COLLEGE,   THE  MARKET,  AND 
THE  COURT. 


TO 
LUCRETIA    MOTT, 

FOR  MORE  THAN  FIFTY  YEARS  A  PREACHER  AND  REFORMER,*  SPOT- 
LESS ALIKE  IN  ALL  PUBLIC  AND  PRIVATE  RELATIONS; 
WHOSE  children's  GRANDCHILDREN  RISE 
UP    TO    CALL    HER    BLESSED) 

tH^fiii  ISook  ii  Bebicateb, 

SINCE    SHE    IS   THE   BEST   EXAMPLE   THAT   I   KNOW   OP   WHAT  ALL 
WOMEN   MAY  AND   SHOULD   BECOME. 


"A  woman 
Leading  with  sober  pace  an  armed  man, 
All  bossed  in  gold,  and  thus  the  superscription: 
'I,  Justice,  bring  this  injured  exile  back 
To  claim  his  portion  in  his  father's  hall.'  " 

Seven  against  Thebeb. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION. 


TN  offering  to  the  public  a  second  edition  of  ''The 
College,  the  Market,  and  the  Court/'  the  author 
desires  cordially  to  thank  her  critics  for  much  valuable 
help.  It  is  sent  out  with  an  Index,  prepared  by 
Charles  A.  Cutter,  of  Harvard  College,  in  response  to 
the  suggestions  of  the  leaders  of  the  press.  Errors  of 
the  proof  have  been  corrected,  and  questionable  state- 
ments carefully  substantiated,  to  avoid  any  occasion 
for  quibbling.  It  has  been  pleasant  to  see  that  the 
English  papers  have  done  justice  to  the  Memoir  of 
Mary  Wollstonecraft.  In  several  instances,  I  have  re- 
stored quotation-marks  which  had  been  dropped  in  fre- 
quent transcribings.  The  Index  restores  to  Mr.  T.  W. 
Higginson  the  credit  which  belongs  to  him  for  about 
half  a  page  of  matter,  which  could  not  be  credited  in 
the  text  without  heavy  expense.  I  wish  that  some  of 
my  critics  would  read  my  book  to  the  end,  before  they 
decide  upon  its  merits.  In  that  case,  they  would  see 
that  I  do  not  absolutely  despise  the  laws  of  political 
economy. 

I  am  told,  that  the  Rev.  Dr.  Todd,  in  commenting 
upon  this  subject  in  public  and  private,  persists  in  as- 

[xxxi] 


:XXX11  PREFACE   TO   THE    SECOND    EDITION. 

serting  that  woman  has  no  creative  nor  inventive 
power;  in  short,  that  no  woman  ever  took  out  a  pat- 
ent. I  don't  care  whether  she  has  such  power  or  not: 
all  I  ask  is,  that  whatever  power  she  has  she  shall  be 
permitted  to  use.  Meanwhile,  the  question  of  the  pat- 
ient is  not  a  question  to  argue,  but  a  fact  to  prove  or 
disprove.  I  have  assisted  many  women  to  procure 
patents;  but  D.  B.  Sanders,  at  96,  Summer  Street,  Bos- 
ton, is  Madame  Foye's  agent  for  six  patents,  applied 
to  corsets  for  women's  wear.  Madame  Foye  is  an 
American  woman,  of  genius  and  intelligence.  In 
three  years,  her  patent  has  brought  her  twenty-five 
thousand  dollars;  and  it  brings  that  annually  to  her 
agent.  Mr.  Sanders  hires  about  two  hundred  girls, 
half  of  whom  are  employed  on  account  of  the  patent. 
Philadelphia  and  Chicago  pay  the  largest  tax  to  this 
patent.  One  Chicago  house  ordered,  for  one  fall  trade, 
seven  hundred  and  thirty-five  dozen.  It  employs 
many  women  as  selling  agents;  and  Madame  Foye 
is  constantly  receiving  letters  from  those  to  whom  it 
gives  a  creditable  support.  Beyond  these  facts,  I  know 
nothing  of  the  value  of  the  patent;  but  I  know  some- 
thing of  the  value  of  the  woman.  In  telling  me  how 
much  more  largely  her  agent  profited  by  the  sales 
than  herself,  Madame  Foye  commented  on  the  cus- 
toms of  trade,  and  added:  ''But  I  do  not  care  for 
that.  Mr.  Sanders  does  not  cut  down  the  wages  of 
his  girls,  and  no  one  employed  on  my  patent  shall. 
If  I  do  not  have  the  larger  part  of  the  money,  I  have 
the  comfort  of  knowing  how  many  women  I  have 


PREFACE   TO   THE    SECOND    EDITION.  XXXIU 

helped,  and  how  many  owe  their  independence  to  its 
sale." 

Will  any  one  pretend,  that  this  woman  does  not 
need,  or  would  not  know  how,  to  vote? 

The  recent  action  of  Apothecawes'  Hall  draws  our 
attention  to  the  fact,  that,  in  the  matter  of  educating 
men  and  women  to  take  degrees  of  medicine,  together, 
the  essential  point  has  not  yet  been  gained.  As  soon 
as  Dr.  Zakrzewska  was  graduated  from  Cleveland,  that 
institution  effectually  closed  its  gates  against  all  sub- 
sequent applicants.  As  soon  as  Miss  Garrett  had 
taken  her  degree  from  Apothecaries'  Hall,  that  institu- 
tion passed  a  by-law,  refusing  to  examine  any  stu- 
dent who  had  received  only  private  instruction;  thus 
effectually  limiting  the  broader  provisions  of  its  char- 
ter. This  interest  calls  for  wise  and  prudent  persist- 
ency; and  it  seems  to  me  that  much  might  be  gained 
if  applications,  properly  sustained,  were  made  to  our 
leading  Universities,  for  examinations  like  those 
granted  at  Oxford.  For  every  half-educated  woman 
now  practising  in  our  cities,  our  accepted  medical 
schools  are  responsible. 

An  extract  from  the  *' London  Athenseum,"  in  the 
note  to  page  225,  speaks  of  Madame  Heidenreich  as 
nee  Von  Siebold.  The  error  escaped  me  in  the  first 
edition,  and  I  now  draw  attention  to  it  in  the  Index. 
The  lady  in  question  was  only  adopted  into  the 
family  of  Von  Siebold,  and  was  nee  Heiland. 

„    „,  .  ^  Caroline  H.  Dall. 

70,  Warren  Avenue,  Boston, 

Nov.  15,  1867. 
3 


A   PREFACE 
TO  BE  READ  AFTER  THE  BOOK. 


\yi  7HEN,  some  years  ago,  I  delivered  nine  lectures 
^  ^  upon  the  Condition  of  Woman,  I  had  no 
intention  of  printing  them  until  time  had  matured 
my  judgments  and  justified  my  conclusions.  Pecu- 
liar circumstances  afterwards  induced  me  to  modify 
this  decision.  The  first  course  of  lectures,  now 
printed  as  ''The  College,"  had  proved  unexpectedly 
popular,  and  was  many  times  repeated.  At  its  close, 
I  announced  the  second  course  upon  Labor,  involving 
the  subject  of  Prostitution  as  the  result  of  Low 
Wages;  and  a  very  unexpected  opposition  ensued. 
My  files  can  still  show  the  large  number  of  letters  I 
received,  beseeching  me  not  to  touch  this  subject;  and 
private  intercession  followed,  on  the  part  of  those  I 
hold  wisest  and  most  dear,  to  the  same  effect.  Why 
I  did  not  yield  to  all  the  clamor,  I  cannot  tell, — 
except  that  I  was  not  working  for  myself  nor  of 
myself. 

I  thought  it,  however,  necessary  to  take  unusual 
precautions  to  prevent  these  lectures  from  being  mis- 
understood.    I  wrote  private  notes,  enclosing  tickets, 

[ XXXV ] 


XXXVl  ,  PREFACE. 

to  almost  all  the  leading  clergymen,  asking  that  they 
would  attend  them  as  a  personal  favor  to  myself.  I 
believe  I  did  not  allude  to  the  efforts  which  had  been 
made  to  silence  me,  except  when  I  wrote  to  those 
who  had  joined  in  the  outcry.  In  that  case,  I  de- 
manded the  attendance  as  an  act  of  justice.  These 
notes  were  kindly  responded  to;  and  grateful  tears 
started  to  my  eyes,  when  I  found  on  the  seats  before 
me  white-haired  men,  who  set  aside  their  prejudices 
for  my  sake.  Whatever  might  have  been  thought 
before,  the  delivery  of  the  lectures  silenced  all  objec- 
tions. They  were  fully  attended  and  frequently  re- 
peated; and  I  followed  the  delivery  by  the  printing 
of  this  particular  course,  in  order  that  misunderstand- 
ings should  not  have  time  to  establish  themselves. 
The  book  was  well  received,  both  at  home  and  abroad. 
Letters  came  to  me  from  the  far  shores  of  India  and 
Africa,  thanking  me  for  its  publication.  The  first 
edition  was  sold  at  once;  and  I  should  have  reprinted 
the  book,  but  that  I  did  not  wish  to  re-issue  these  lec- 
tures in  an  isolated  form.  I  wanted  them  reprinted, 
if  at  all,  in  their  proper  place,  subordinated  to  my 
main  thought. 

I  smile  a  little  as  I  look  back.  The  remonstrances 
upon  my  file,  dated  less  than  ten  years  ago,  would 
now  be  earnestly  repudiated  by  the  dear  friends  who 
wrote  them. 

After  the  delivery  of  the  third  course,  upon  Law, 
local  reasons  decided  the  publication  of  that  book. 
Many    efforts    were   made    in   the    different    States 


PREFACE.  XXXVU 

to  change  laws;  and  it  was  thought  that  the  lectures 
would  give  necessary  information. 

Of  the  first  course,  nothing  has  ever  been  printed 
in  this  country.  The  second  lecture  was  printed,  by 
a  sympathizing  friend  in  England,  as  a  tract,  and 
widely  circulated.  Part  of  it  was  reprinted  with 
approbation  in  the  ''Englishwoman's  Journal."  The 
whole  of  this  course  is  now  given  to  American  read- 
ers in  its  proper  connection,  in  which  it  is  hoped,  that 
its  bearing  upon  the  later  lectures  will  be  seen,  and  a 
new  significance  given  to  its  suggestions.  The  his- 
tory of  these  volumes  seems  to  make  it  necessary  to 
reprint  the  original  Prefaces  in  connection  with  the 
lectures  on  Labor  and  Law. 

In  1856,  I  conceived  the  thought  of  twelve  lec- 
tures, to  be  written  concerning  Woman;  to  embrace, 
in  four  series  of  three  each,  all  that  I  felt  moved  to 
say  in  relation  to  her  interests.  No  one  knew  better 
than  myself  that  they  would  be  only  "  twelve  baskets 
of  fragments  gathered  up;"  but  I  could  not  distrust 
the  Divine  Love  which  still  feeds  the  multitudes,  who 
wander  in  the  desert,  with  ''five  loaves  and  two  small 
fishes.". 

In  the  first  three  of  these  lectures,  I  stated  woman's 
claim  to  a  civil  position,  and  asked  that  power  should 
be  given  her,  under  a  professedly  republican  govern- 
ment, to  protect  herself.  In  them  I  thus  stated  the 
argument  on  which  I  should  proceed:  "The  right  to 
education — that  is,   the  right  to  the  education  or 


XXXVIU  PREFACE. 

drawing-out  of  all  the  faculties  God  has  given — 
involves  the  right  to  a  choice  of  vocation;  that  is, 
the  right  to  a  choice  of  the  end  to  which  those 
faculties  shall  be  trained.  The  choice  of  vocation 
necessarily  involves  the  protection  of  that  vocation, 
— the  right  to  decide  how  far  legislative  action  shall 
control  it;  in  one  word,  the  right  to  the  elective  fran- 
chise." 

Proceeding  upon  this  formula,  I  delivered,  in  1858, 
a  course  of  lectures  stating  ''Woman's  Claim  to 
Education;"  and  this  season  I  have  condensed  my 
thoughts  upon  the  freedom  of  vocations  into  the  three 
following  lectures.  There  are  still  to  be  completed 
three  lectures  on  ''Woman's  Civil  Disabilities."  I 
should  prefer  to  unite  the  twelve  lectures  in  a  single 
publication;  but  reasons  of  imperative  force  have  in- 
duced me  to  hurry  the  printing  of  these  "Essays  on 
Labor."  Neither  Education  nor  Civil  Disability  can 
dispute  the  public  interest  with  this  subject.  No  one 
can  know  better  than  myself  upon  what  wide  infor- 
mation, what  thorough  mental  discipline,  all  consider- 
ations in  regard  to  it  should  be  based.  I  have  tried  to 
keep  my  work  within  the  compass  of  my  ability,  and, 
without  seeking  rigid  exactness  of  detail,  to  apply 
common  sense  and  right  reason  to  problems  which 
beset  every  woman's  path.  At  the  very  threshold  of 
my  work,  I  confronted  a  painful  task.  Before  I  could 
press  the  necessity  of  exertion,  before  I  could  plead 
that  labor  might  be  honored  in  the  public  eye,  I  felt 
that  I  must  show  some  cause  for  the  terrible  earnest- 


PREFACE.  XXXIX 

ness  with  which  I  was  moved;  and  I  could  only 
do  it  by  facing  boldly  the  question  of  ''Death  or  Dis- 
honor?" 

''Why  not  leave  it  to  be  understood?"  some  per- 
sons may  object.  "Why  not  leave  such  work  to 
man?"  the  public  may  continue. 

In  answer  to  the  first  question,  I  would  say,  that 
very  few  women  have  much  knowledge  of  this  "per- 
ishing class,"  except  those  actually  engaged  in  minis- 
tering to  its  despair;  and  that  the  information  I  have 
given  is  drawn  from  wholly  reliable  sources,  as  the 
reader  may  see,  but  can  be  obtained  only  by  hours — 
nay,  days  and  weeks — of  painful  and  exhausting 
study.  Very  gladly  have  I  saved  my  audience  that 
necessity:  greatly  have  I  abbreviated  whatever  I  have 
quoted.  But  I  meant  to  drive  home  the  reality  of 
that  wretchedness:  I  wanted  the  women  to  whom 
I  spoke  to  feel  for  those  "in  bonds  as  bound  with 
them;"  and  to  understand,  that  to  save  their  own 
children,  male  and  female,  they  must  be  willing  to 
save  the  children  of  others.  It  will  be  observed,  that 
I  have  said  very  little  in  regard  to  this  class  in  the 
city  of  Boston;  very  little,  also,  that  was  definite  in 
regard  to  our  slop-shops.  The  deficiency  is  inten- 
tional. I  would  not  have  one  woman  feel  that  I  had 
betrayed  her  confidence,  nor  one  employer  that  I 
had  singled  him  out  as  a  victim;  and  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  speak  on  such  subjects  without  finding 
the  application  made  to  one's  hand.  I  may  say,  in 
general,  that  a  very  wide  local  experience  sustains 


Xl  PREFACE. 

the  arguments  which  I  have  based  on  published  sta- 
tistics. 

It  was  also  my  earnest  desire  to  prepare  one  arti- 
cle on  this  subject  that  might  be  put  into  the  hands 
of  both  sexes;  that  might  be  opened  to  the  young, 
and  read  in  the  family  circle,  without  thrilling  the 
reader  with  any  emotion  less  sacred  than  religious 
pity.  This  cannot  be  true  of  the  reports  of  any 
Moral  Reform  Society;  for  in  them  it  is  needful  to 
print  details  so  gross  in  character  as  to  be  fit  reading 
for  none  but  well-principled  persons  of  mature  age. 
It  is  not  true  of  such  a  work  as  Dr.  Sanger's;  for  his 
historical  retrospect  furnishes  every  possible  excuse 
to  the  vices  of  youth,  and  is  open  to  question  on  every 
page. 

From  the  highest  sources  in  this  community — 
from  the  lips  of  distinguished  clergymen,  scholars, 
and  men  of  the  world — I  have  had  every  private 
assurance,  that,  in  this  respect,  I  have  not  failed. 

It  would  be  unjust  not  to  state,  that  two  powerful 
causes  co-operate,  in  the  city  of  Boston,  with  low 
wages,  to  cause  the  ruin  of  women;  I  mean  the  love 
of  dress,  and  a  morbid  disgust  at  labor. 

The  love  of  dress  was  a  motive  which  obviously 
had  no  natural  relation  to  my  subject.  A  disinclina- 
tion to  work,  my  readers  may  think,  it  was  proper  I 
should  have  treated;  but  it  is  the  natural  reflection 
of  a  state  of  things,  in  the  upper  classes,  which  would 
be  a  much  fitter  subject  of  rebuke. 

So  long  as  a  lady  will   allow   her   guest  to   stand 


PREFACE.  Xli 

exposed  to  snow  and  rain,  rather  than  turn  the  han- 
dle of  the  door  which  she  happens  to  be  passing;  so 
long  as  neither  bread  nor  water  can  be  passed  at 
table,  except  at  the  omnipresent  waiter's  convenience, 
— servants  will  naturally  think  that  there  is  some- 
thing degrading  and  repulsive  in  work.  This  reform 
must  begin  in  the  higher  classes. 

But,  if  this  subject  must  be  treated  at  all,  why- 
should  it  not  be  left  to  men?  Can  women  deal  with 
it  abstractedly  and  fairly?  The  answer  is  simple.  In 
physics,  tio  scientific  observations  are  reliable,  so 
long  as  they  proceed  from  one  quarter  alone;  many 
observers  must  report,  and  their  observations  must 
be  compared,  before  we  can  have  a  trustworthy  re- 
sult. So  it  is  in  social  science.  Men  have  been 
dealing  with  this  great  evil,  unassisted,  for  thousands 
of  years.  By  their  own  confession,  it  is  as  unap- 
proachable and  obstinate  as  ever.  Conquered  by  its 
perpetual  re-appearance,  they  have  come  to  treat  it 
as  an  ''institution"  to  be  ''managed;"  not  an  evil 
to  be  abolished,  or  a  blasphemy  to  be  hushed.  But 
these  lectures  are  not  written  for  atheists.  The 
speculative  sceptic  has  retreated  before  the  broad 
sunlight  of  modern  civilization:  only  two  classes  of 
atheists  remain, — men  of  science,  who  fancy  that 
they  have  lost  sight  of  the  Creator  in  his  works,  and 
talk  of  the  human  soul  as  the  most  noble  result  of 
material  forces;  and  people  of  fashion,  who  live 
"without  God  in  the  world."  Why  man  should 
ever    investigate    the    material    universe    without    a 


Xlii  PREFACE. 

tender  and  reverent,  nay,  a  growing  dependence  on 
'Hhe  dear  heart  of  God,"  we  will  not  pause  to  in- 
quire. The  child  does  not  let  go  his  father's  hand 
when  he  first  comprehends  the  abundance  of  his 
resources.  Neither  the  fountains  of  God's  beauty, 
nor  the  perplexities  of  his  nicely  ordered  law,  loosen 
man's  loving  grasp,  He  clings  all  the  closer  in  his 
joy,  because  he  knows  Him  better.  But  why  should 
not  the  denizens  of  the  fashionable  world  be  atheists? 
When  I  go  ariiong  them,  and  listen  to  their  heartless 
fooleries;  when  I  see  them  absorbed  by  the  vain 
nothings  of  their  coterie,  rapt  in  endless  consultations 
about  times  and  seasons,  devoid  of  any  real  enjoy- 
ment, hopeless  of  noble  occupations,  with  the  days  all 
empty  and  the  nights  all  dark, — then  I,  too,  shiver 
with  doubt,  and  am  ready  to  say  in  my  heart,  ''There 
is  no  God."  We  can  never  believe  in  any  spiritual 
reality  of  which  our  own  souls  do  not  receive  some 
faint  reflex.  These  people  must  do  the  will  of  the 
Father,  before  they  can  believe  in  his  love.  I  do  not 
write  for  them,  but  for  thoughtful  men  and  women, 
who  rejoice  in  God's  presence,  deny  the  permanence 
of  evil  institutions,  and  are  anxious  to  share  with 
others  the  inheritance  that  belongs  to  the  ''child  of 
the  kingdom," — for  those  who  have  faith  to  remove 
mountains,  and  courage  to  confess  the  faith.  For 
them  I  shall  not  have  spoken  too  plainly. 

Shortly  after  these  essays  were  written, — in  June, 
1859, — I  received  from  London  Mrs.  Jameson's 
^'Letter  to  Lord  John  Russell;"  and  I  cannot  refrain 


PREFACE.  Xliii 

from  expressing  the  deep  emotion  with  which  I  read 
what  she  had  written  to  him  upon  the  same  subject. 
Well  may  she  wear  the  silver  hairs  of  her  sixty  years 
like  a  crown,  if,  only  through  their  sanction,  she  may 
speak  such  noble  words.     But — 

"Earnest  purposes  do  age  us  fast;" 

and  many  a  true-hearted  woman,  far  younger  in 
years,  would  gladly  bear  witness  with  her. 

I  would  not  write,  if  I  could,  an  ''exhaustive" 
treatise.  All  I  ask  for  my  work  is,  that  it  should  be 
''suggestive."  With  that  purpose,  I  have  worked 
out  my  schemes,  in  the  last  lecture,  far  enough  to 
provoke  objection,  to  stimulate  the'  spirit  of  adven- 
ture, to  show  how  easily  the  "work"  may  wait  upon 
the  "will."  May  the  "Opening  of  the  Gates"  be 
near  at  hand ! 

It  remains  only  to  acknowledge  my  indebtedness  to 
some  English  and  American  friends:  and  first  to  the 
" Enghshwoman's  Journal;"  not  merely  for  its  own 
excellent  articles,  but  for  references  and  suggestions, 
most  valuable  when  followed  out.  The  story  of  the 
young  straw-braider  was  drawn  from  its  pages;  and, 
disappointed  in  the  arrival  of  original  material  from 
Paris,  long  expected,  I  have  been  compelled  to  depend 
upon  it  largely  for  my  sketch  of  Felicie  de  Fauveau. 
To  one  of  its  editors.  Miss  B.  R.  Parkes,  and  to 
Madame  Bodichon  in  London,  as  well  as  to  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Higginson,  I  am  under  pleasant  private  obliga- 
tions.    I  must  rest  content  to  seem  largely  indebted 


Xliv  PKEFACE. 

to  the  ''Edinburgh  Review,"  of  April,  1859,  for  con- 
densing the  results  of  the  census.  My  materials  were 
collected  and  arranged,  when  the  article  on  ''Female 
Industry"  reached  me;  and  the  differences  in  treat- 
ment were  so  few,  that  I  at  once  drew  my  pen 
through  whatever  was  not  sanctioned  by  its  author- 
ity. The  ladies  who  first  directed  my  attention  to 
the  Waltham  watch-factory,  and  to  the  inventors  of 
artificial  marble  in  France,  will  see  from  these  few 
words  that  I  am  not  forgetful. 

Boston,  November,  1859. 

There  seems,  at  first  sight,  a  certain  presumption  in 
offering  to  an  American  public,  at  this  moment,  any 
book  which  does  not  treat  of  the  great  interests  which 
convulse  and  perplex  the  United  States.  But  expe- 
rience has  shown,  that  neither  the  individual  nor  the 
national  mind  can  remain  continually  upon  the  rack; 
and  both  author  and  publisher  have  thought  that  a 
book  upon  a  serious  subject,  popular  in  form  and 
low  in  price,  would  find  perhaps  a  more  hearty  wel- 
come, under  present  circumstances,  than  in  those  pros- 
perous days,  when  romances  and  poems,  travels  and 
biographies,  were  scattered  over  every  table  by  the 
score. 

"Woman's  Right  to  Labor"  owed  its  warm  wel- 
come, not  to  any  power  or  skill  in  its  author,  but  to 
the  impatient  interest  of  philanthropists  in  every 
thing  relating  to  that  subject.  It  remains  to  be  seen, 
whether  as  large  a  portion  of  the  public  and  the  press 


PREFACE.  Xlv 

are  prepared  to  treat  with  candid  consideration  the 
subject  of  Law. 

Both  these  volumes  have  been  given  to  the  world 
in  their  detached  form,  that  they  might  receive  the 
benefit  of  general  criticism;  that  errors,  inaccuracies, 
or  misapprehensions,  might  be  perceived  and  rectified 
before  they  took  a  permanent  position  as  part  of  a 
larger  work.  All  criticism,  therefore,  which  is  honestly 
intended,  will  be  received  with  patience  and  gratitude; 
but  a  great  deal  falls  to  the  lot  of  the  author  which 
cannot  come  under  this  head. 

If  we  are  told  that  a  ''wider  acquaintance  with  the 
history"  of  a  certain  era  will  modify  our  views,  it  is 
natural  to  expect  that  an  honest  critic  will  show  where 
the  acquaintance  fails,  and  how  the  views  should  be 
modified.  When  we  are  told  that  certain  scientific 
illustrations,  ''though  true  in  the  main,  are  not  accu- 
rate in  detail,"  we  may  reasonably  hope  to  see  at 
least  07ie  error  pointed  out.  When  neither  of  these 
things  is  done,  we  sweep  such  remarks  aside,  as  alike 
unprofitable  to  us  and  our  readers. 

A  wide  and  generous  sympathy  in  my  aims  has 
given  me,  thus  far,  all  I  could  desire  of  encour- 
agement and  appreciation;  and  this  appreciation 
has  come,  in  several  instances,  from  a  "household  of 
faith"  far  removed  from  my  own,  and  has  been 
mingled  in  such  cases  with  an  outspoken  regret,  that 
one  who  "wrote  so  well,  and  felt  so  warmly,"  should 
not  acknowledge  on  her  pages  the  debt  woman  owes 
to   Christianity,    and   unfurl   an   evangelical   banner 


Xlvi  PREFACE. 

above  a  Christ-like  work.  Because  such  friends 
have  spoken  tenderly,  I  answer  them  respectfully; 
because  I  never  saw  any  church-door  so  narrow 
that  I  could  not  pass  through  it,  nor  so  wide  that  it 
would  open  to  all  God's  glory,  I  answer  them  without 
fear. 

And.  first,  I  believe  in  God,  as  the  tender  Father 
of  all;  as  one  who  cares  for  the  least  of  his  children, 
and  does  not  turn  from  the  greatest;  as  one  whose 
eye  marks  the  smallest  inequalities  of  happiness  or 
condition,  and  holds  them  in  a  memory  which  does 
not  fail.  I  believe  in  Christ  as  his  authorized 
Teacher,  anointed  to  reveal  the  fulness  of  God's  love 
through  his  own  life  of  practical  good-will.  I  do  not 
expect  him  to  be  superseded  or  set  aside;  and  I  do 
expect,  that  in  proportion  as  men  grow  wiser,  humbler, 
and  sweeter,  their  eyes  will  open  only  the  more  widely 
to  the  great  miracle  of  his  spotless  life,  to  the  heav- 
enly nature  of  his  so  simple  teachings.  And,  next,  I 
believe  in  my  own  work, — the  elevation  of  woman 
through  education,  which  is  development;  through 
labor,  which  is  salvation;  through  legal  rights,  which 
are  only  freedom  to  develop  and  save, — as  part  of 
the  mission  of  Jesus  on  the  earth,  authorized  by  him, 
inspired  of  God,  and  sure  of  fulfilment  as  any  portion 
of  his  law.  If  at  any  time  I  have  lost  sight  of  this 
in  expression,  it  is  because  I  have  thought  it  impos- 
sible that  the  purpose  and  character  of  my  work 
should  be  mistaken.  I  am  a  slow  and  patient  worker, 
— patient,  because  one  may  well  be  patient,  if  God 


PREFACE.  Xlvif 

can;  and  therefore  no  disappointment,  no  lack  of 
appreciation,  could  sour  or  disturb  me. 

If  I  have  justified  the  publication  of  this  essay  at 
the  present  moment,  it  may  be  thought  that  I  shall  not 
be  able  to  justify  the  principal  presumption;  namely 
that  of  a  woman  who  undertakes  to  write  upon  law. 

Such  a  treatise  as  this  would  be  valueless,  in  my 
eyes,  if  it  were  written  by  a  man.  It  is  a  woman's 
judgment  in  matters  that  concern  women  that  the 
world  demands,  before  any  radical  change  can  be 
made.  To  understand  the  laws  under  which  I  must 
live,  no  recondite  learning,  no  broad  scholarship,  no 
professional  study,  can  be  fitly  required.  Common 
intelligence  and  common  sense  are  all  that  society 
has  any  right  to  claim  of  me.  Because  most  women 
shrink  from  criticising  this  law,  I  have  criticised  it. 

Very  recently,  the  ''London  Quarterly"  said,  in 
speaking  of  the  republication  of  John  Austin's  work, 
that  "English  jurisprudence  would  be  indebted  for 
one  of  its  highest  aids  to  the  reverential  affection  of  a 
wife,  and  the  patient  industry  of  a  refined  and 
intellignent  woman;"  and  Mrs.  Austin  defends  her 
undertaking  on  this  very  ground, — that,  if  she  had 
not  superintended  the  work,  no  one  else  would.  If 
John  Austin's  firm  and  penetrating  intellect  could  not 
hold  a  score  of  persons  about  his  lecturer's  desk,  and 
if  it  found  its  fit  appreciation  only  in  the  grave,  a 
conscientious  woman  need  not  shrink  from  any 
branch  of  his  great  subject,  only  because  her  audi- 
ence will  be  small. 


Xlviii  PREFACE. 

In  one  of  his  lectures  upon  Art,  John  Ruskin 
says : — 

"Every  leaf  we  have  seen,  connects  its  work  with  the  entire 
and  accumulated  result  of  the  work  of  its  predecessors.  Dying, 
it  leaves  its  own  small  but  well-labored  thread ;  adding,  if  imper- 
ceptibly, yet  essentially,  to  the  strength,  from  root  to  crest,  of 
the  trunk  on  which  it  has  lived,  and  fitting  that  trunk  for  better 
service  to  the  next  year's  foliage." 

Let  these  words,  printed  on  my  titlepage,  show 
the  modesty  of  my  aim,  and  the  conscientious  stead- 
fastness of  my  purpose.  As  the  leaf  is  to  the  tree,  so 
is  the  individual  to  society.  Tear  away  a  single  leaf 
from  the  towering  crest,  and  the  trunk  does  not  seem 
to  suffer:  nevertheless,  one  small  thread  withers,  one 
channel  dries  up,  one  source  of  beauty  and  use  fails, 
and,  from  that  moment,  a  certain  sidewise  tendency 
marks  the  growth. 

To  compact  carefully  one  ''well-labored  thread,"  is 
all  that  I  have  sought  to  do, — to  write  a  little  book, 
that  women  might  be  won  to  read,  as  conscientiously 
as  if  it  were  a  heavy  tome,  to  be  endlessly  consulted 
by  the  bench. 

In  writing  these  three  lectures,  I  feel  quite  sure  that 
I  must  have  made  use  of  many  significant  expressions 
borrowed  from  those  who  have  broken  the  way  for 
me.  For  many  years  an  extemporaneous  lecturer  on 
this  and  kindred  topics,  I  have  so  wrought  certain 
modes  of  expression  into  the  fabric  of  my  thought, 
that  I  do  not  know  where  to  put  my  quotation-marks. 


PREFACE.  Xlix 

To  Mrs.  Hugo  Reid,  for  instance,  I  know  I  must  be 
under  great  obligations;  and  I  can  only  hope,  that 
she  will  trust  me  with  her  thoughts  and  words  as 
generously  as  I  desire  to  trust  all  my  readers  with 
mine.  It  is  little  matter  who  does  the  work,  so  that 
it  be  done;  but  I  owe  to  one  author,  in  particular, 
something  like  an  explanation. 

A  few  days  before  the  third  of  these  lectures  was 
delivered  in  Boston  (that  is,  before  Jan.  23,  1861), 
a  gentleman  from  Paris  brought  me  from  Madame 
d'Hericourt,  a  book  called  "Lsi  Femme  Affranchie," 
an  answer  to  Michelet,  Proudhon,  Girardin,  and 
Comte,  which  its  author  kindly  desired  I  should  trans- 
late for  the  American  market.  Unable  to  comply 
with  her  request,  some  weeks  elapsed  before  I  opened 
the  book.  I  was  struck  with  the  energy,  self-pos- 
session, and  rapidity  with  which  she  seized  the  various 
points  of  the  subject,  with  the  thoroughness  of  her 
assault,  and  the  temper  of  her  argument.  I  did  not 
sympathize  in  all  her  methods  or  conclusions;  but  I 
was  interested  to  observe,  that,  in  what  I  had  then 
written  and  publicly  spoken  of  the  relations  between 
suffrage  and  humanity,  I  had,  in  several  instances, 
used  her  very  words,  or  she  had  used  mine.  I  did 
not  alter  my  manuscript;  but,  with  better  times,  we 
may  hope  for  a  translation  of  her  spirited  volumes,  and 
the  public  will  then  do  justice  to  her  precedence. 

I  have  been  anxious  to  have  positive  proof  of  my 
conjecture  in  regard  to  the  authorship  of  the  ''Lawe's 
Resolution  of  the  Rights  of  Women;"  but  persever- 


1  PREFACE. 

ing  endeavors  in  England,  in  several  directions,  have 
only  left  the  matter  as  it  stands  in  the  text.  It  would 
be  very  interesting  to  know  something  of  the  private 
history  of  the  man  who  wrote  that  book. 

In  the  first  of  the  following  lectures,  I  have  ven- 
tured a  rhetorical  allusion  to  the  blue-laws  of  Con- 
necticut. Since  it  went  to  press,  I  have  seen  it  stated, 
on  high  authority,  that  any  American  writer  who 
should  ''profess  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  the  blue- 
laws  of  New  Haven  would  simply  proclaim  himself 
a  dunce;"  and  the  ''Saturday  Review"  has  been 
handled  without  gloves  for  taking  this  existence  for 
granted. 

I  never  supposed  that  the  term  "blue"  applied  to 
the  color  of  the  paper  on  which  such  laws  were 
printed,  any  more  than  I  supposed  "blue  Presby- 
terianism"  referred  to  the  color  of  the  presbyters' 
gowns.  I  supposed  it  was  the  outgrowth  of  a  popu- 
lar sarcasm,  descriptive,  not  of  a  "veritable  code," 
nor  of  a  "practical  code  unpublished,"  but  of  such 
portions  of  the  general  code  as  were  repugnant  to 
common  sense,  and  the  genial  nature  of  man.  This 
I  still  think  will  be  found  to  be  the  case;  and  it  is 
certainly  to  Connecticut  divines  and  Connecticut 
newspapers  that  we  owe  the  popular  impression. 

It  was  in  the  forty-sixth  year  of  the  independence 
of  the  United  States  that  S.  Andrus  &.  Co.,  of  Hart- 
ford, published  a  volume  purporting  to  be  a  compen- 
dium of  early  judicial  proceedings  in  Connecticut, 
and  especially  of  that  portion  of  the  proceedings  of 


PREFACE.  11 

the  Colony  of  New  Haven  commonly  called  the 
''blue-laws."  Charles  A.  Ingersoll,  Esq.,  testified  to 
the  correctness  of  these  copies  of  the  ancient  record. 

As  I  quote  this  title  wholly  from  memory,  I  am 
unable  to  say  whether  the  colony  ever  fined  a  bishop 
for  kissing  his  own  wife  on  Sunday;  but  I  have  read 
more  than  once  of  such  fines;  and,  if  no  laws  remain 
unrepealed  on  the  Connecticut  statute-book  quite  as 
absurd  in  their  spirit  and  general  tendency,  there  are 
many  on  those  of  Massachusetts  and  New  Hampshire: 
so  I  shall  let  my  rhetorical  flourish  stand. 

To  my  English  friends,  to  Mr.  Herndon  of  Illinois, 
Mr.  Higginson,  and  Samuel  F.  Haven,  Esq.,  of  Wor- 
cester, I  owe  my  usual  acknowledgments  for  books 
lent,  and  service  proffered,  with  a  generosity  and 
graceful  readiness  cheering  to  remember. 

Nor  will  I  omit,  in  what  may  be  a  last  opportunity, 
to  bear  faithful  testimony  to  the  assistance  rendered, 
in  all  my  studies  of  this  sort,  by  my  friend,  Mr.  John 
Patton,  of  Montreal.  No  single  person  has  helped 
me  so  much,  so  wisely,  or  so  well. 

In  order  to  secure  technical  accuracy,  my  manu- 
script and  proofs  have  been  subjected  to  the  revision  of 
my  friend,  the  Hon.  Samuel  E.  Sewall.  The  principal 
alteration  which  Mr.  Sewall  has  made,  has  been  the 
substitution  of  the  word  "suffrage"  for  that  of  "fran- 
chise;" which  latter  I  used  in  the  Continental  fashion. 
I  prefer  it  to  "suffrage,"  because  it  seems  to  have  a 
broader  signification;  but  I  yield  it  to  his  sugges- 
tion. 


lii  PREFACE. 

I  would  gladly  have  dedicated  this  volume  to  the 
memory  of  the  late  John  W.  Browne,  whose  pure 
purpose  and  eminent  gifts  made  me  rejoice,  while  he 
was  living,  to  call  him  friend.  As,  however,  he  never 
read  the  whole  of  the  manuscript,  I  have  given  it  a 
dedication  'Ho  the  friends  of  forsaken  women,"  which 
no  one,  who  knew  him  well,  will  fail  to  perceive  in- 
cludes him. 

Boston,  Sept.  1,  1861. 

Caroline  H.  Dall. 

70,  Warren  Avenue, 
Boston,  January,  1867. 


CONTENTS. 


THE  COLLEGE. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  DEMAND  AND  THE 
PUBLIC  OPINION. 

Original  Proposition.  Objections  to  Republicanism,  No  Retro- 
grade Steps  Possible.  The  Educational  Rights  of  Women. 
A  Share  of  Opportunities  the  only  Effectual  Way.  Both 
Sexes  need  the  Oversight  of  Women.  Men  need  the  Needle. 
Sydney  Smith  to  Lady  Holland.  The  Education  not  Won  till 
its  Privileges  are  attained.  Kapnist  and  the  Normal  School. 
Low  Wages.  An  Illustration.  The  Social  Position  of  the 
Teacher.  The  Spirit  of  Caste.  Increase  of  Salaries.  Is  it 
Real  or  Nominal?  What  is  the  Standard  of  Education? 
Niebuhr  to  Madame  Hensler.  Cousin  and  Madame  de  Sabl6. 
Examples  of  To-day  do  not  Cheer.  Opinion  of  the  Druses. 
Charles  Lamb  on  Letitia  Landon.  Coventry  Patmore.  Mrs. 
Jameson  on  the  English  Deficiency.  Standard^  of  Italy. 
500,000  Women  in  England.  Dr.  Gooch's  Appeal.  Oppo- 
sition to  first  School  of  Design.  Note  on  Miss  Garrett.  B.  L. 
Bodichon  on  Jessie  Meriton  White  and  Medical  Colleges. 
Need  of  a  Medical  Society.  John  Adams  on  his  Wife.  Why 
has  not  the  Standard  advanced?  Alice  Holliday  in  Egypt. 
Hekekyan  Effendi  speaking  for  the  Massachusetts  Board  of 
Education.  Madame  Luce  in  Algiers.  Her  Workshop  Dis- 
continued.    The  Advance  shown  in  such  Lives.     Mrs.  Griffith. 


[liii] 


liv  CONTENTS. 

Janet  Taylor.  Miss  Martineau.  "Aurora  Leigh."  Maria 
Mitchell.  Oread  Institute.  New  York  Schools.  Vassar  Col- 
lege. Michigan  University.  Duty  of  Literary  Men  and 
Women  to  invigorate  Public  Opinion.  What  is  Public  Opin- 
ion?    Mary  Patton pp.  1-48. 

II. 
HOW  PUBLIC   OPINION  IS   MADE. 

Existing  Opinion.  Proverbs.  The  Novel  kept  Faith  with  the 
Classics.  Social  Customs.  Newspapers.  All  form  this  Opin- 
ion. Individual  Influence  must  stem  the  United  Current. 
The  Classics.  Aristophanes.  Iscomachus.  Euripides.  Col- 
lege Slang.  St.  John.  Margaret  Fuller  on  her  "Beloved 
Greeks."  Buckle.  From  Greece  to  Rome.  Ovid.  No  Need 
to  end  Classical  Study.  Rather  sanctify  it.  Perversions  of 
History  in  the  Classical  Spirit.  Hypatia.  Aspasia.  Society 
in  the  Time  of  Louis  XIV.  and  Charles  II.  Lady  Morgan  on 
Alfred  de  Vigny.  Rousseau.  Dr.  Day,  Dr.  Gregory,  and 
Dr.  Fordyce.  Margaret  Fuller.  Association  of  Ideas.  Fanny 
Wright.  Captain  Wallis  and  the  Queen  of  Otaheite.  Peru 
and  the  Formosa  Isles.  African  Customs.  Mrs.  Kirkland 
on  the  Strong  Box.  Sir  John  Bowring  on  Marriage.  Mrs. 
Barbauld.     The  Newspapers.     Impure  Habits,  pp.  49-82. 

III. 

THE   MEANING  OF  THE  LIVES  THAT  HAVE 
MODIFIED  PUBLIC  OPINION. 

Mary  Wollstonecraft  and  the  Literature  of  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury. "Rights  of  Woman."  "Not  Empu-e,  but  Equality." 
Dr.  Channing  on  Mrs.  WoUstonecraft.  Her  Unhappy  Home. 
Fanny  Blood.  Breaks  up  her  School.  Saves  the  French 
Crew.  Provides  for  her  Brothers  and  Sisters.  Translations. 
Answer  to  Burke.     Fuseli.     Paris.  Imlay.     Helen  Maria  Wil- 


CONTENTS.  IV 

liams.  Happiness.  Deserted  in  Eighteen  Months.  At- 
tempted Suicide.  Goes  to  Norway.  Final  Separation.  Mar- 
ries Godwin.  Birth  of  Mrs.  Shelley.  Death  of  Mary.  Her 
Husband's  Testimony.  No  Fair  Statement  recorded.  Strength 
of  Prejudice  against  her.  A  Republican  and  a  Unitarian. 
The  Judgment  of  her  own  Time  upon  her.  The  Right  of  Soci- 
ety to  pass  Judgment.  Mr.  Day  and  Maria  Edgeworth. 
Lady  Morgan.  Always  True  to  Freedom.  Harriet  Marti- 
neau.  Thorough  Work.  Mrs.  Jameson.  Her  Bravery  and 
Truth.  Woman's  Rights  Testimony.  Mrs.  Gaskell.  Fred- 
rika  Bremer.  The  Brownings.  "Aurora  Leigh."  Char- 
lotte Bronte.  "I  Care  for  Myself."  Our  Abdiel.  Margaret 
Fuller  as  a  Person.  "Woman  in  the  Nineteenth  Century." 
"Truth-teller  and  Truth-compeller."  Rebuke  to  Harriet 
Martineau.  Emerson's  Misapprehension.  Florence  Nightin- 
gale. Santa  Paula.  Mary  Patton.  Miss  Muloch  libels 
Women.  The  Popular  Idea  of  Love.  Woman's  Entire  Self- 
possession.  Carlyle  and  Count  Zinzendorf.  Who  refuses 
Strength  must  miss  Beauty.  The  Best  Brains  make  the  Best 
Housekeepers.  The  Affections  of  the  Woman  prompt  and 
dignify  the  Labors  of  the  Scholar      ...      pp.  83-130. 


THE  MARKET. 


DEATH  OR  DISHONOR. 

The  Attar  of  Cashmere.  Moral  Force  must  change  the  Results 
of  History.  Statement  of  Subject.  Death  or  Dishonor  the 
Practical  Question.  An  Honorable  Independence  the  Way 
of  Safety.  The  Forcing  Pump  and  Siphon.  Women  must 
Work  for  Pay.  Success  the  Best  Argiunent.  Competition 
in  Rural  Districts.  Duchdtelet.  Miss  Craig.  "Edinburgh 
Review."     Dressmakers  and  Sir  James  Clarke.     Lace-makers. 


Ivi  CONTENTS. 

Manchester  Mantle-maker.  7,850  Ruined  Women  in  New- 
York.  Society  Responsible  for  this  Evil.  Governesses.  Mr. 
Mayhew  to  the  "  Morning  Chronicle."  The  Minister's  Daugh- 
ter. The  Power  of  a  Divine  Love.  Noble  Natures  among 
the  Fallen.  The  Glasgow  Case.  1,H80  Reformed  French 
Women.  The  Straw-braider.  Have  Women  Strength  to 
Labor?  Marie  de  Lamourous.  The  Young  Laborer  to  be 
Protected  by  Social  Influences.  Women  Hard  Workers  from 
the  Beginning.  China.  Hindostan,  Bombay  Ghauts.  Aus- 
tralia. Africa.  Greece.  Bertha  of  the  Transjurane.  Tj-to- 
lese  Escort  of  Women.  Germany.  Montenegro.  Holland. 
France.  Widow  Brulow.  Nelly  Giles.  Ignacia  Riso.  Fac- 
tory Labor  in  France.  Sale  of  Wives  at  Derby  and  Dudley. 
Women  in  the  Coal-mines.  Pinmakers.  Anna  Gurney.  Hon- 
duras. American  Indians.  Santa  Cruz.  Ohio  and  Pennsyl- 
vania. New  York.  Women  of  Lawrence.  Ship  "Grotto." 
Thomas  Garratt  concerning  Sarah  Ann  Scofield.  That  all  Men 
support  all  Women,  an  Absurd  Fiction     .      .     pp.  131-177. 

IL 

VERIFY  YOUR  CREDENTIALS. 

Want  of  Employment  lowers  the  Whole  Moral  Tone.  Vigorous 
Women  do  not  Ask  what  they  shall  Do.  Idleness  the  Curse 
of  Heaven.  Organized  Opposition  on  Man's  Part.  Mr. 
Bennett  and  the  Watchmakers.  Ribbon  Looms  at  Coventry. 
The  School  at  Marlborough  House.  Miss  Spencer.  Painting 
Crockery.  Printing  in  America.  Pennsylvania  Medical  So- 
ciety, 1859.  Want  of  Respect  for  Labor.  Census  of  the 
United  Kingdom.  Agriculture.  Mining.  Fishing.  Servants, 
&c.  Reporters.  Bright  Festival.  Metal  Workers.  Gillett's 
Pens.  Jewelry.  Screw-making.  Button-making.  Paper  and 
Card  Making.  Engravers,  Printers,  &c.,  &c.  The  Lower 
Classes  need  the  Brains  of  the  Upper.  Labor  in  the  United 
States.  Nantucket.  Pennsylvania.  Dr.  Franklin's  Sister- 
in-law.     Mrs.   Hillman.     Mrs.  Johnson.     Martha  B.  Curtis. 


CONTENTS.  Ivii 

Ann  Bent.  Scientific  Pursuits  not  Open.  Clerks  under 
Government.  Census.  Waltham  Watch  Factory.  Dentists 
School  Committees.  Post-mistresses.  Olive  Rose.  Semi-pro- 
fessions and  Artists.  Shoemaking  in  Lynn.  Condition  of  the 
Poor  dependent  on  the  Action  of  the  Rich.  Happy  Homes 
the  Growth  of  Active  Lives.  The  Pine  and  iEnemone.  Emily 
Plater.  "Verify  your  Credentials."  Encouragement  from 
Men;  Faithfulness  from  Women.  The  Sorbonne.  Madame 
Sirault.  That  Career  fated  which  Woman  may  not  share. 
Influence  of  the  Sexes  on  each  other.  Baron  Toermer  and 
F^licie  de  Fauveau pp.  178-220. 

m. 

''THE  OPENING  OF  THE   GATES." 

The  Drowning  of  Daughters.  Teachers  of  Elocution  and  the 
Languages.  Inspectors.  Physicians.  Dr.  Heidenreich.  Wood 
Carving.  Properzia  dei  Rossi.  Swiss  Work.  Elizabetta 
Sirani.  Engravers.  Barbers.  Candied  Fruit  for  Christmas. 
Pickles.  Fruit  Sauces.  Dishmops.  Gymnastics.  Female 
Assistants  in  Jails,  Prisons,  Workhouses;  not  to  be  had 
till  Public  Opinion  honors  Labor.  Florence  Nightingale  an 
Example.  Parish  Ministers.  Deaconesses.  Marian  of  the 
Seven  Dials.  Reading  Aloud  to  the  Perishing  Classes.  St. 
Pancras.  Mrs  Wightman.  A  Training  School.  A  Public 
Laundry  and  Bleaching  Ground.  Ready-made  Clothing.  An 
Assistance  to  our  Practical  Charity.  Knitting  Factory.  Orna- 
mental Work  to  be  Avoided.  Occupation  for  the  Young  Ladies 
at  the  West  End.  Mrs.  Ellen  Woodlock  and  her  Industrial 
Schools.  She  takes  Eighty  Paupers  out  of  the  Poorhouse. 
Mr.  Buckle's  Position  to  be  Questioned.  Mistaken  Moral 
Effort  a  Harm  to  Society.  Want  of  Connection  between  the 
Employer  and  the  Employed.  People  who  want  "a  Chance 
Lift."  Defects  in  our  Present  Intelligence-Offices.  A  Labor 
Exchange.  The  Argument  Restated.  Will  you  tread  out 
the  Nettles?  The  Drosera.  Purposes  the  Blossoms  of  the: 
Human  Heart pp.  221-261. 


Iviii  CONTENTS. 

THE  COURT. 

I. 

THE  ORIENTAL  ESTIMATE  AND  THE  FRENCH  LAW. 

The  Seat  of  the  Law  the  Bosom  of  God?  Of  what  Law?  Legal 
Restrictions  constantly  Outgrown.  The  Laws  which  relate  to 
Woman.  Vishnu  Sarma:  the  Hindoo  Wife  must  use  the  Dialect 
of  the  Slave.  Ancient  Chinese  Writer.  Kohl  on  Turkish  Hus- 
bands. Convent  to  lock  up  Ladies.  The  Island  of  Coelebes. 
The  Garrows  in  the  North-east  of  India.  The  Muhar.  Mili- 
tary Tribe  of  Nairs  in  Malabar.  Later  Proverbs;  used  by  the 
Satirists.  The  Four  Points  to  Consider.  Discussion  of  Mar- 
riage and  Divorce  to  be  Deferred.  The  Public  Opinion  which 
has  educated  Woman,  and  her  Approximation  to  it.  Woman 
under  Roman  Law.  Absence  of  well-tested  Contemporaneous 
Evidence.  Theodora.  French  Law.  Bonaparte's  Opinion. 
The  Estimate  of  a  Double  Character.  Condition  of  the  Peas- 
ant-woman. Need  of  Love  in  the  Upper  Classes.  Business- 
freedom.  George  Sand.  Rosa  Bonheur,  and  the  Claimants 
for  Civil  Rights.  The  Dotal  founded  on  Roman  Law;  the 
Communal  founded  on  German.  Dotal  Law  rejected  through- 
out Europe.  Protection  means  Subordination.  As  a  "Public 
Merchant,"  Woman  becomes  a  French  Citizen.  Position 
contradictory:  not  allowed  to  rule  the  Household,  which  is 
called  her  Sphere.  Civil  Position.  No  Right  of  Promotion. 
Laws  of  Louisiana.  Estimate  of  Woman  under  the  "Code 
Napoleon:"  tends  to  lower  her  Wages.  List  of  Employments. 
The  Needle-women  of  Paris pp.  263-286. 

II. 
THE  ENGLISH  COMMON  LAW. 

It  contains  All  to  which  we  have  any  Need  to  Object. 
Literature.     "The  Lawe's  Resolution  of  Woman's  Rights." 


CONTENTS.  lix 

Inquiries  as  to  its  Author.  Probability  points  to  Sir  John 
Doderidge.  The  Law,  for  Single  Women,  of  Inheritance. 
Offices  Open.  Right  to  Vote,  and  Lady  Packington.  Sheriff 
of  Westmoreland.  Lady  Rous.  Henry  VIII.  and  Lady  Anne 
Berkeley.  As  Constable,  and  Overseer  of  the  Poor.  Female 
Voter  in  Nova  Scotia.  Law  relating  to  Seduction :  its  Profanity. 
The  French  Law,  as  summed  up  by  Legouv^.  Woman's  Opin- 
ion of  this  Law.  Objections.  Laws  concerning  Married 
Women.  Impossibility  of  Divorce,  from  Hopeless  Insanity. 
Instances  where  Men  have  taken  the  Law  into  their  own  Hands. 
Impossibility  of  Woman's  ever  doing  this.  Marriage  of  a 
Minor.  A  Wife  loses  all  her  Rights.  Satire  in  a  London  Court. 
Truth  of  this.  Consequent  Unwillingness  of  the  Honest 
Poor  to  Marry,  and  of  Single  Women  of  Rank  to  relinquish 
Power.  Freed  women  at  the  South.  The  Descendant  of 
Morgan  the  Buccaneer.  Need  of  Equity.  May  make  a  Will 
by  Permission.  Nutriment  of  Infants.  The  Law  resists 
Maternal  Influence,  and  denies  Natural  Authority.  Word  not 
binding.  Gifts  Illegal.  Indictments  in  the  Husband's  Name. 
Divorces:  only  Three  ever  granted  to  Women.  The  Widow 
recovers  her  Clothes  and  Jewels,  but  need  not  bury  her  Hus- 
band. Christian  on  Suffrage.  Moderate  Correction.  Prop- 
erty-laws. The  Hon.  Mrs.  Norton.  Hungarian  Freedom. 
Right  to  Vote.  Experience  in  America.  Parisian  Milliner. 
"Union  is  Robbery."  The  Heiress.  Longevity  of  the  Wife. 
Woman  discouraged  from  Labor  by  the  Influence  of  the  Laws 
of  Property.  Sexual  Legislation  thoroughly  Immoral.  Man's 
Adultery  even  a  more  Serious  Evil  than  Woman's  so  far  as  State 
Morals  and  Interests  are  concerned.  Canton  Glarus.  " Courts 
have  never  gone  that  Length."  Debate  on  the  New  Divorce 
Bill.  Man's  Fidelity  considered  an  Imbecility.  The  Compli- 
ments of  the  Law.  The  Husband's  Vigilance.  DupUcity  the 
Natural  Result  of  Slavery.  The  Right  of  Suffrage.  Objections 
Answered.  The  Abstract  Right  and  the  Practical  Question. 
Suffrage  to  be  limited  by  Education,  not  Money  nor  Sex. 
The  *'Sad  Sisterhood."  Woman  has  never  had  a  Representa- 
tive. Her  Suffrage  would  put  an  End  to  Three  Classes  of 
Laws.     Harris  vs.  Butler.     Delicate   Matters  to  be  Discussed. 


Ix  CONTENTS. 

The  Duke  of  York's  Trial.  John  Stuart  Mill's  Opinion.  Dedi- 
cation of  his  Essay  on  Liberty.  Women  of  Upsal.  On  Juries, 
Miss  Shedden.  Russell  on  Female  Evidence.  Fate  of  the 
"Bulwarks  of  the  Enghsh  Constitution."  Power  of  Women 
not  Disputed  while  it  was  dependent  on  Property.  It  should 
depend  on  Humanity".  Loui  XIV.  and  the  Fish-women. 
Pauline  Roland  and  Madame  Moniot.  Men'  borrow  the  Suf- 
frages of  Women.  Saxon  Witas.  Abbess  Hilda.  Council  at 
Benconceld.  King  Edgar's  Charter.  Abbesses  in  Parlia- 
ment. Peeresses  in  Parliament.  East-India  Stockholders. 
Stockholders  in  Banks.  Association  for  the  Promotion  of 
Social  Science.  Mrs.  Mill's  Article.  Florence  Nightingale's 
Evidence.  Petition  to  Parhament,  and  its  Signers.  The  New 
Divorce  Bill.  Buckle's  Lecture.  Canadian  Changes.  Incon- 
sistencies.    Canadian  Women  as  Voters.     Pitcairn's   Island. 

pp.  287-341. 

III. 

THE  UNITED  STATES   LAW,  AND   SOME    THOUGHTS 
ON  HUMAN   RIGHTS. 

Condition  of  Women  in  Republics.  Helvetia.  Kent  on  the 
Law's  Estimate.  ''The  Man's  Notion."  Property-laws,  and 
Natural  Obligations  of  Husband  and  Wife.  The  Law's  Indul- 
gence. Marriage  and  Divorce  in  the  Different  States.  Variety 
of  the  Laws.  "Cruelty."  What  have  the  Woman's-Rights 
Party  done? — changed  the  Law  in  nineteen  States.  The 
Law  of  Illinois.  Rhode  Island  on  Property.  Vermont.  Con- 
necticut. New  Hampshire.  Massachusetts,  and  what  remains 
to  be  done.  Maine.  Ohio.  Judge  Graham's  Decision. 
Mrs.  Dorr's  Claim.  New  York  Property-bill  of  1860,  and  its 
Supplement.  Relief  to  5,000  Women.  Mrs.  Stanton  before 
the  Legislature.  The  Right  of  Suffrage  in  New  Jersey.  Wis- 
consin. Michigan.  Ohio.  Kansas.  Connecticut.  Ken- 
tucky in  Reference  to  Suffrage.  V^  Woman's  Right  to  Life, 
Liberty,  and  the  Pursuit  of  Happiness. \  Mrs.  John  Adams 
and  Hannah  Corbin  understood  its  Worthlessness.     Richard 


CONTENTS.  Ixi 

Henry  Lee  on  a  Woman's  Security.  "Woman's  Rights," — a 
Phrase  we  all  Hate:  identical  with  "Human  Rights," — a  Phrase 
we  all  Honor.  Reception  of  Woman  in  the  Lyceum.  Labor  to 
be  honored  through  Woman.  Trade  to  become  a  Fine  Art. 
Property-holders  must  have  Pohtical  Power.  Mr.  Phillips  on 
Suffrage.  The  Lowell  Mill.  Dr.  Hunt's  Protests.  Mean 
Men.  Woman's  Duty  to  the  State  a  Moral  Duty.  Woman's 
Right  to  Man  as  Counsellor  and  Friend.  The  Constitution  of 
the  Family.  The  Historical  Development  of  the  Question. 
Mary  Astell  in  the  Seventeenth  Century.  Mary  Wollstone- 
craft  in  the  Eighteenth,  and  the  Customs  of  Australia.  Re- 
sponses to  her  Appeal.  Margaret  Fuller  in  the  Nineteenth. 
The  great  Lawsuit  in  1844.  Convention  at  Seneca  Falls  in 
1848.  National  Association  in  1850.  Profane  Inanity. 
Chinese  Women.  Does  Power  belong  to  Humanity  or  to 
Property?  Mahomet,  and  the  Right  to  Rule.  Wendell  Phil- 
lips and  the  Venetian  Catechism.     .      .      .      .     pp.  342-374 


TEN  YEARS. 

Education. — Absence  of  Discussion  Wise,  American  Associa- 
tion for  the  Promotion  of  Social  Science.  Lectures  from  the 
Lowell  Institute.  Ripley  College.  Howard  University.  Pro- 
fessor Baldwin  at  Berea.  St.  Lawrence  University,  N.  Y. 
Lombard  University,  III.  Oberlin.  List  of  Colleges  it  has 
Organized.  Lane  Seminary.  President  Finney.  Ladies'  Li- 
brary. Ladies'  Hall.  Miss  Fanny  Jackson.  A  Confession. 
Antioch.  Way  thither.  Yellow  Springs.  The  Glen.  Matins. 
Necessities.  Changes  in  Buildings,  Books,  &c.  Missionary 
Work.  The  Professors.  The  Brigadier-General.  Literary 
Societies.  A  Southern  Refugee.  Vassar  College.  Lawrence 
University,  Kansas.  Letter  from  Miss  Chapin.  A  Professor 
Elected.  Michigan  University.  Miss  Nightingale's  Training- 
School  for  Nurses,  Liverpool.     Schools  in  Calcutta.     Deacon- 


Ixii  CONTENTS. 

esses.  Kaiserworth.  Strasburg.  Basle.  St.  Loup.  Geneva 
Faubourg  St.  Antoine.  Passevant  Hospital.  Bishop  Ker- 
foot's  Schools pp.  377-429. 

Medical  Education. — New  York  Medical  Society.  Medical 
Society  in  London.  Hospital  of  the  Maternity  in  Paris.  Miss 
Garrett  and  Apothecaries'  Hall.  Dr.  Zakrzewska  and  the 
Medical  Society.  Medical  Lectures  at  Harvard.  Women 
and  the  Cossacks.  Women  and  the  Algerines.  Women  in 
India.  Cause  of  Cholera.  Success  of  Female  Physicians. 
Dr.  Ross.  A  Medical  College  Needed.  New  England  Hos- 
pital  pp.  429-434. 

Pulpit. — Amelie  von  Braum.  Mamsell  Berg.  Rev.  Olympia 
Brown.  Mrs.  Jenkins.  Mrs.  Booth.  Mrs.  Timmins.  Ann 
Rexford.  Nancy  Gove  Cram.  Abigail  H.  Roberts.  Mrs. 
Hedges.  The  Church  at  Amsterdam,  and  its  Deaconesses. 
Resolution  at  Syracuse.  Delegates  to  Local  Conferences. 
Mrs.  Dall.     Counsel  to  Women  who  desire  to  preach. 

pp.  434-447. 

Art  Schools. — Lowell  Institute.  Cooper  Institute.  Miss 
Roundtree  and  Miss  Curtis.  Coloring  Photographs.  Mrs. 
Elizabeth  Murray  and  the  London  Society  of  Female  Artists. 

pp.  447-449. 

Labor. — Statistics  of  Eight-hour  Movement.  Factory  Labor  in. 
England.  Foreign  Society  for  Employment  of  Women. 
Mending  Schools.  A  Barber.  Public  Clerks.  Fanny  Paine. 
Musical  Careers.  Charlotte  Hill.  WiUiston  Button-factory. 
Madam  Clarke.  A  Capitalist.  Mr.  Thayer's  Lodgiag-house 
for  Girls.  Young  Women's  Christian  Association.  Lodging- 
house  in  New  York.  Miss  Hill's  Ruskin  Lodging-houses  in 
London.     Female  Printers.     A  Notary  Public  pp.  450-468. 

Law. — Married  Women  in  New  York.  Right  of  an  Ordained 
Woman  to  Marry  in  Massachusetts.  School  Committees. 
Richmond.  Are  a  Woman's  Clothes  her  own?  State  of  Mis- 
souri. College.  Where  shall  a  Woman's  Children  go  to  Church? 
Francis  Jackson's  Will.  Conference  at  Leipsic.  Petition  to 
enable  Widows,  Potter's  County,  Pa.  Women  as  Bank 
Directors.    . pp.  468-472. 


CONTENTS.  Ixiii 

Suffrage  . — Kansas .  M  issouri  in  Congress .  The  Speaker  of  the 
House.  Mercantile  Library  in  Philadelphia.  Voting  in  New 
Jersey.  Mr.  Parker  at  Perth  Amboy.  A  Petition  to  Ken- 
tucky. Equal-Rights  Association,  Petitions,  &c.  George 
Thompson's  Objections.  John  Stuart  Mill  and  the  Franchise. 
English  Petition  a  Model.  To  be  sustained  by  Able  Men. 
Mrs.  Bodichon's  Pamphlets.  Women  Ejected.  Austria. 
Swedish  Reform  Bill.     Italian  Law.     The  Hungarian  Diet. 

pp.  472-486. 

Civil  Progress. — Austraha.  Moravia.  Dublin.  Aisne.  Ber- 
geres.     Need  of  a  Newspaper pp.  486-488. 

Obituaries,  &c. — Merian.  Baring.  Famham.  Lemonnier. 
Dr.  Barry.     Mrs.  Severn  Newton.         ...     pp.  488-491. 

The  Ballot  will  secure  All  Things.  A  Glimpse  of  the  Wide  West. 
Vassar  and  Miss  Lyman.  Oberlin  and  Mrs.  Dascomb.  Dr. 
Glass.  Female  Lecturers.  Business  Capacity  of  Women. 
The  Ice  in  Fox  River,  111.  Cholera  at  Elgin.  Quincy  High 
School.  Coloring  Photographs  at  the  Cooper  Institute. 
Conclusion pp.. 49 1-499. 


THE  COLLEGE; 

OB, 

WOMAN'S  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION. 

IN  THREE  LECTURES. 

I. — The  Christian  Demand  and  the  Public  Opinion. 
II. — How  Public  Opinion  is  made. 
III. — ^The  Meaning  of  the  Lives  that  have   modified  it 


c.  m.)-3  ' 


Now  press  the  clarion  on  thy  woman's  hp, 
(Love's  holy  kiss  shall  still  keep  consecrate,) 
And  breathe  the  fine,  keen  breath  along  the  brass, 
And  blow  all  class-walls  level  as  Jericho's 
Past  Jordan.     .  The  world's  old; 

But  the  old  world  waits  the  hour  to  be  renewed. 

Aurora  Leigh. 

Two  of  far  nobler  shape,  erect  and  tall, — 
Godlike  erect,  with  native  honor  clad 
In  naked  majesty, — seemed  lords  of  all 
And  worthy  seemed;  for  in  their  looks  divine 
The  image  of  their  glorious  Maker  shone^ — 
Truth,  wisdom,  sanctitude  severe  and  pure; 
Whence  true  authority  in  men. 

Milton. 


THE  COLLEGE. 


I. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  DEMAND  AND  THE  PUBLIC  OPINION. 

"Since  I  am  coming  to  that  holy  room, 
Where,  with  the  choir  of  saints  for  evermore, 
I  shall  be  made  thy  music ;  afi  I  come, 
I  tmie  the  instrument  here  at  the  door, 
And  what  I  must  do  then,  think  here  before." 

Macdonald. 

^  I  ^0  propose  an  essay  on  education  requires  no 
-*■  little  courage;  for  the  term  has  covered,  with  its 
broad  mantle,  every  thing  that  is  stupid,  perverse, 
and  oppressive  in  literature.  We  will  not  tax  our- 
selves, however,  to  consider  exact  theories,  or  suggest 
formal  dissertations.  In  these  lectures,  let  us  take  all 
the  liberties  of  conversation;  pass,  in  brief  review,  a 
wide  range  of  subjects;  comment  lightly,  not  thor- 
oughly, upon  them;  and  trust  to  quick  sympathies 
and  intelligent  apprehension  to  follow  out  any  really 
useful  suggestions  that  may  be  made. 

Some  time  since,  we  laid  down  this  proposition: 
''A  man's  right  to  education — that  is,  to  the  educa- 
tion or  drawing-out  of  all  the  faculties  God  has  given 
him — involve     the   right   to   a   choice   of   vocation; 

[31 


'  4'"*  c  y :  *-.;  '  •  •  ^[  /.\ the  college. 

that  is,  to  a  choice  of  the  end  to  which  those  faculties 
shall  be  trained.  The  choice  of  vocation  involves  the 
right  and  the  duty  of  protecting  that  vocation;  that 
is,  the  right  of  deciding  how  far  it  shall  be  taxed,  in 
how  many  ways  legislative  action  shall  be  allowed  to 
control  it;  in  one  word,  the  right  to  the  elective  fran- 
chise." 

This  statement  we  made  in  the  broadest  way; 
applying  it  to  the  present  condition  of  women,  and 
intending  to  show,  that,  the  moment  society  conceded 
the  right  to  education,  it  conceded  the  whole  question, 
unless  this  logic  could  be  disputed. 

Men  of  high  standing  have  been  found  to  question 
a  position  seemingly  so  impregnable,  but  only  on  the 
ground  that  republicanism  is  itself  a  failure,  and  that 
it  is  quite  time  that  Massachusetts  should  ins'st  upon 
a  property  qualification  for  voters. 

In  this  State,  so  remarkable  for  its  intelligence  and 
mechanical  skill, — a  State  which  has  sent  regiment 
after  regiment  to  the  battle-field,  armed  by  the  college, 
rather  than  the  court, — in  this  State,  one  ^somewhat 
eminent  voice  has  been  heard  to  whisper,  that  men 
have  not  this  right  to  education;  that  the  low^r  classes 
in  this  country  are  fatally  injured  by  the  advantages 
offered  them;  that  they  would  be  happier,  more  con- 
tented, and  more  useful,  if  left  to  take  their  chance, 
or  compelled  to  pay  for  the  reading  and  writing  which 
their  employers,  in  some  kinds,  might  require. 

We  need  not  be  sorry  that  these  objections  are  so 
stated.     They  are  a  fair  sample  of  all  the  objections 


CHRISTIAN    DEMAND   AND    PUBLIC   OPINION.  5 

that  obtain  against  the  legal  emancipation  of  womariy 
an  emancipation  which  Christ  himself  intended  and 
prophesied, — speaking  always  of  his  kingdom  as 
one  in  which  no  distinctions  of  sex  should  either  be 
needed  or  recognized.  Push  any  objector  to  the 
wall,  and  he  will  be  compelled  to  shift  his  attitude. 
He  says  nothing  more  about  women,  but  shields  him- 
self under  the  old  autocratic  pretension,  that  man, 
collectively  taken,  has  no  right  to  life,  liberty,  or  the 
pursuit  of  happiness;  that  republicanism  itself  is  a 
failure. 

Our  hearts  need  not  sink  in  view  of  this  assertion, 
apparently  sustained  by  a  civil  war  that  fixes  the  sus- 
picious eyes  of  autocratic  Europe  in  sullen  suspense. 
A  republic,  whose  foundations  were  laid  in  usurpa- 
tion, could  not  expect  to  stand,  till  it  had,  with  its  own 
right  arm,  struck  off  its  ''feet  of  clay."  It  is  not  free- 
dom which  fails,  but  slavery. 

The  course  of  the  world  is  not  retrograde.  Massa- 
chusetts will  not  call  a  convention  to  insist  upon  a 
property  qualification  for  voters,  neither  will  she  close 
her  schoolhouses,  nor  forswear  her  ancient  faith.  The 
time  shall  yet  come  when  she  shall  free  herself  from 
reproach,  and  fulfil  the  prophetic  promise  of  her  re- 
publicanism, by  generous  endowment  for  her  women, 
and  the  open  recognition  of  their  citizenship. 

It  is  not  our  purpose,  however,  to  dwell  upon  facili- 
ties of  school  education.  More  conservative  speakers 
will  plead,  eloquently  as  we  could  wish,  in  that  behalf; 
and  suggestions  on  other  topics  need  to  be  made. 


^ 


6  THE    COLLEGE.* 

We  have  already  said,  that  the  educational  rights 
of  women  are  simply  those  of  all  human  beings, — 
namely,  ''the  right  to  be  taught  all  common  branches 
of  learning,  a  sufficient  use  of  the  needle,  and  any 
higher  branches,  for  which  they  shall  evince  either 
taste  or  inclination;  the  right  to  have  colleges,  schools 
of  law,  theology,  and  medicine  open  to  them;  the 
right  of  access  to  all  scientific  and  literary  collections, 
to  anatomical  preparations,  historical  records,  and  rare 
manuscripts." 

And  we  do  not  make  this  claim  with  any  particular 
theory  as  to  woman's  powers  or  possibilities.  She 
may  be  equal  to  man,  or  inferior  to  him.  She  may 
fa,il  in  rhetoric,  and  succeed  in  mathematics.  She 
may  be  able  to  bear  fewer  hours  of  study.  She  may 
insist  on  more  protracted  labor.  What  we  claim  is, 
that  no  one  knows,  as  yet,  what  women  are,  or  what 
they  can  do, — least  of  all,  those  who  have  been 
wedded  for  years  to  that  low  standard  of  womanly 
achievement,  which  classical  study  tends  to  sustain. 
Because  we  do  not  know,  because  experiment  is 
necessary,  we  claim  that  all  educational  institutions 
should  be  kept  open  for  her;  that  she  should  be 
encouraged  to  avail  herself  of  these,  according  to  her 
own  inclination;  and  that,  so  far  as  possible,  she 
should  pursue  her  studies,  and  test  her  powers,  in 
company  with  man.  We  do  not  wish  her  to  follow 
any  dictation;  not  ours,  nor  another's.  We  ask  for 
her  a  freedom  she  has  never  yet  had.  There  is, 
between   the   sexes,    a   law   of   incessant,    reciprocal 


CHRISTIAN   DEMAND    AND    PUBLIC    OPINION.  7 

action,  of  which  God  avails  himself  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  family,  when  he  permits  brothers  and  sis- 
ters to  nestle  about  one  hearth-stone.  Its  ministra- 
tion is  essential  to  the  best  educational  results.  Our 
own  educational  institutions  should  rest  upon  this 
divine  basis.  In  educating  the  sexes  together  under 
fatherly  and  motherly  supervision,*  we  avail  our- 
selves of  the  highest  example;  and  the  result  will  be 
a  simplicity,  modesty,  and  purity  of  character,  not  so 
easy  to  attain  when  general  abstinence  from  each 
other's  society  makes  the  occasions  of  re-union  a 
period  of  harmful  excitement.  Out  of  it  would  come 
a  quick  perception  of  mutual  proprieties,  delicate 
attention  to  manly  and  womanly  habits,  refinement 
of  feeling,  grace  of  manner,  and  a  thoroughly  sym- 
metrical development.  If  the  objections  which  are 
urged  against  this — the  divine  fashion  of  training 
men  and  women  to  the  duties  of  life — were  well 
founded,  they  would  have  been  felt  long  ago  in  those 
district  schools,  attended  by  both  sexes,  which  are  the 


*  This  does  not  mean  the  supervision  of  father  and  mother,  but  that  into 
colleges,  universities,  medical  schools,  and  whatever  educational  institutions 
may  be  named,  the  controlling  and  protecting  influence  of  both  sexes  should 
be  carried.  I  believe  that  every  university  should  have  a  cultivated  and  ele- 
gant woman  (not  necessarily  the  wife  of  any  of  its  ofl&cers),  whose  duty  it 
should  be  to  preside  over  its  social  life,  and  offer  such  allurements  to  virtuous 
pleasure  that  gambling-houses  and  worse  shall  lose  their  present  fascinations . 
If  young  men  could  associate  with  virtuous  and  lovely  women,  imder  suitable 
sanction,  in  their  college  life,  they  would  not,  in  general,  go  out  of  it  in  search 
of  the  vicious  and  unlovely.  No  one  who  lives  within  three  miles  of  a  large 
university  need  doubt  the  meaning  of  this  paragraph.  An  age  and  a  reli- 
gious faith  which  discards  the  cloister,  should  discard  a  cloisteral  fashion, 
wherever  it  exists. 


8  THE    COLLEGE. 

pride  of  New  England.  The  classes  recently  opened 
by  the  Lowell  Institute,  under  the  control  of  the 
Institute  of  Technology,  are  an  effort  in  the  right 
direction,  for  which  we  cannot  be  too  grateful.  Here- 
tofore, every  attempt  to  give  advanced  instruction  to 
women  has  failed.  Did  a  woman  select  the  most 
accomplished  instructor  of  men,  and  pay  him  the 
highest  fee,  she  could  not  secure  thorough  tuition. 
He  taught  her  without  conscience  in  the  higher 
branches;  for  he  took  it  upon  himself  to  assume  that 
she  would  never  put  them  to  practical  use.  He 
treated  her  desire  for  such  instruction  as  a  caprice, 
though  she  might  have  shown  her  appreciation  by 
the  distinct  bias  of  her  life.  We  claim  for  women  a 
share  of  the  opportunities  offered  to  men,  because  we 
believe  that  they  will  never  be  thoroughly  taught 
until  they  are  taught  at  the  same  time  and  in  the 
same  classes. 

The  most  mischievous  errors  are  perpetuated  by 
drawing  masculine  and  feminine  lines  in  theory  at 
the  outset.  The  God-given  impulse  of  sex,  if  left 
in  complete  freedom,  will  establish,  in  time,  certain 
distinctions  for  itself;  but  these  distinctions  should 
never  be  pressed  on  any  individual  soul.  Whether 
man  or  woman,  each  should  be  left  free  to  choose 
its  own  methods  of  development.  We  pause,  there- 
fore, to  show,  that,  when  we  spoke  of  a  certain  use 
of  the  needle  as  a  matter  to  be  taught  to  both 
sexes,  we  did  so  by  no  inadvertence.  The  use  of 
the  sewing  machine  is  even  now  common  to  both; 


CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   AND    PUBLIC   OPINION.  9 

but  men,  as  well  as  women,  should  be  taught  to  use 
their  fingers  for  common  purposes  skilfully.  Per- 
sonal contact  with  the  pauperism  of  large  cities  has 
sent  this  conviction  home  to  many  practical  minds. 

The  rough  tippets,  mittens,  and  socks  imported 
into  the  British  Colonies,  are  the  work  of  the  Welsh 
farmers  and  the  Shetland  fishermen  during  the  long 
tempestuous  winter  nights.  In  writing  to  Lady 
Holland,  Sidney  Smith  pens  some  pleasant  words  on 
this  subject. 

''I  wish  I  could  sew,"  he  says.  *'I  believe  one 
reason  why  women  are  so  much  more  cheerful  than 
men  is  because  they  can  work,   and  so  vary  their 

employments.     Lady used  to  teach   her  boys 

carpet- work.     All  men  ought  to  learn  to  sew." 

All  men!  and  so  might  the  cares  of  many  women 
be  lightened.  Let  lis  candidly  confess  our  own 
indebtedness  to  the  needle.  How  many  hours  of 
sorrow  has  it  softened,  how  many  bitter  irritations 
calmed,  how  many  confused  thoughts  reduced  to 
order,  how  many  life-plans  sketched  in  purple! 

Let  us  pass  over  that  portion  of  our  statement 
which  hints  at  vocation,  and  confine  ourselves,  for 
the  present,  to  that  part  of  it  which  looks  to  an 
unrestricted  mental  culture.  Nowhere  is  this  syste- 
matically denied  to  women.  It  is  quite  common  to 
hear  people  say,  ''There  is  no  need  to  press  that  sub- 
ject. Education  in  New  England  is  free  to  women. 
In  Bangor,  Portsmouth,  Newburyport,  and  Boston, 
they  are  better  Latin  scholars  than  the  men.     Nothing 


10  THE    COLLEGE. 

can  set  this  stream  back:  turn  and  labor  else- 
where." 

We  have  shown  to  how  very  small  an  extent  this 
statement  is  true.  If  it  were  true  of  the  mere  means 
of  education,  education  itself  is  not  won  for  woman, 
till  it  brings  to  her  precisely  the  same  blessings  that 
it  bears  to  the  feet  of  man;  till  it  gives  her  honor, 
respect,  and  bread;  till  position  becomes  the  right- 
ful inheritance  of  capacity,  and  social  influence  fol- 
lows a  knowledge  of  mathematics  and  the  languages. 
Our  deficiency  in  the  last  stages  of  the  culture  offered 
to  our  women  made  a  strong  impression  on  a  late 
Russian  traveller. 

''Is  that  the  best  you  can  do?"  said  Mr.  Kapnist, 
when  he  came  out  of  the  Mason-street  Normal 
School  for  Girls.  ''It  is  very  poor.  In  Russia,  we 
should  do  better.  At  Cambridge,  you  have  eminent 
men  in  every  kind, — Agassiz,  Gray,  Peirce.  Why 
do  they  not  lecture  to  these  women?  In  Russia, 
they  would  go  everywhere, — speak  to  both  sexes. 
At  a  certain  age,  recitation  is  the  very  poorest  way 
of  imparting  knowledge." 

To  all  adult  minds,  lectures  convey  instruction 
more  happily  than  recitation;  and,  when  men  and 
women  are  taught  together,  the  lecture  system  is 
valuable,  because  it  permits  the  mind  to  appro- 
priate its  own  nutriment,  and  does  not  oppress  the 
faculties  with  uncongenial  food. 

To  those  who  are  familiar  with  the  whole  ques- 
tion, no  theme  is  more  painful  than  that  of  the  in- 


CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   AND    PUBLIC    OPINION.  11 

adequate  compensation  and  depressed  position  of 
the  female  teacher.  There  is  no  need  to  harp  on 
this  discordani  string.  Let  us  strike  its  key-note 
in  a  single  story. 

A  year  ago,  in  one  of  the  most  beautiful  towns 
of  this  neighborhood,  separated  by  a  grassy  common, 
shaded  with  droopitig  elms,  rose  two  ample  build- 
ings, dedicated  to  the  same  purpose.  They  were 
the  High  Schools  for  the  two  sexes. 

They  were  taught  by  two  persons,  admirably  fitted 
for  their  work.  The  man,  uncommonly  happy  in 
imparting  instruction,  was  yet  deficient  in  mathe- 
matics, and  considered  by  competent  judges  inferior 
to  the  woman. 

She  was  an  orphan,  with  a  young  sister  dependent 
upon  her  for  instruction  and  support.  She  had  been 
graduated  with  the  highest  honors  at  one  of  the 
State  Normal  Schools.  She  was  delicate  and  beau- 
tiful; not  in  the  least  ''strong-minded."  Neither 
spectacles  upon  her  nose,  nor  wooden  soles  to  her 
boots,  appealed  to  the  popular  indignation.  All  who 
knew  her  loved  her;  and  the  man  whom  we  have 
named  was  not  ashamed  to  receive  instruction  from 
her  in  geometry  and  algebra.  The  two  schools 
were  equal  in  numbers.  The  man  was  a  bach- 
elor, subject  to  no  claim  beyond  his  own  necessity. 
What  did  common  sense  and  right  reason  demand, 
but  that  these  two  persons  should  be  treated  alike  by 
society,  prudential  committees,  and  so  on?  You  shall 
hear  what  was  the  fact.     The  man  was  engaged  at 


12  THE    COLLEGE. 

a  salary  of  fifteen  hundred  dollars.  The  wealthiest 
class  in  the  community  intrusted  its  sons  to  his 
charge  without  question.  Single,  he  was  much  made 
of  in  society,  invited  to  parties,  and  had  his  own  cor- 
ner at  many  a  tea-table,  which  he  brightened  with  his 
pleasant  jokes.  He  soon  came  to  be  a  person  in 
the  town, — had  his  vote,  was  valued  accordingly; 
went  to  church,  was  put  upon  committees,  had  a 
great  deal  to  do  with  calling  the  new  minister,  and 
so,  out  of  school,  had  pleasant  and  varied  occupa- 
tion, which  saved  his  soul  from  racking  to  death 
over  the  ruts  of  the  Latin  grammar.  Would  we 
have  it  otherwise?  Was  it  not  all  right?  Certainly 
it  was,  and  our  friend  deserved  it;  deserved,  too,  that 
when  the  second  year  was  half  over,  and  there  were 
rumors  that  a  distant  city  had  secured  his  services, 
the  committee  should  raise  his  salary  two  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars,  and  so  keep  him  for  themselves. 
But  let  us  look  at  the  reverse  of  the  picture.  The 
woman,  burdened  with  the  care  of  a  younger  sister, 
greatly  this  man's  superior  in  mathematics  and  pos- 
sibly in  other  things,  was  engaged  at  six  hundred 
dollars.  It  was  not  customary  for  the  wealthy  fami- 
lies in  that  neighborhood  to  trust  their  girls  to  the 
tender  mercies  of  a  public  school;  so  she  had  a  class 
of  pupils  less  elegant  in  manner,  of  more  or- 
dinary mental  training,  and  every  way  more  difficult 
to  control.  Still  they  were  disciplined,  and  learned 
to  love  their  teacher.  A  few  of  the  parents  called 
upon  her,  and  she  was  occasionally  invited  to  their 


CHRISTIAN    DEMAND    AND    PUBLIC    OPINION.  13 

homes.  But  these  homes  were  not  congenial  to  her 
tastes  or  habits.  There  was  no  intellectual  stimu- 
lus derived  from  them  to  brighten  her  life.  They 
offered  neither  pictures,  statues,  books,  nor  the  re- 
sults of  travel,  to  her  delicate  and  yearning  appre- 
ciation. She  talked,  for  the  most  part,  of  her  pupils 
and  their  work;  and  the  strain  of  her  vocation,  always 
heavier  on  woman  than  on  man,  wore  more  and 
more  upon  her  soul.  Society,  as  such,  offered  her 
no  welcome.* 


♦"Society  offered  her  no  welcome."  I  am  very  well  aware  that  this  state- 
ment, taken  with  what  I  shall  elsewhere  indicate,  will  be  considered  an  exaggera- 
tion; but,  with  a  somewhat  wide  and  varied  experience  of  the  United  States 
and  of  Canada,  I  maintain  it  to  be  true.  I  am  not  to  say  what  is  true  in  the 
eyes  of  others,  but  what  is  true  in  my  own.  "What!"  some  one  will  exclaim, 
"education  not  a  passport  to  social  honor!  Where  was  there  ever  a  country 
where  the  teacher  was  respected  as  she  is  in  New  England?"  Theoretically, 
this  is  true:  and  I  have  known  a  few  instances  in  New  England,  in  which  teachers 
of  private  schools,  of  good  family,  successful  in  acquiring  wealth  (not  necessarily 
through  their  schools),  kept  an  eminent  social  position.  Men  generally  keep 
a  fair  position;  women,  rarely.  To  t«st  the  truth  of  this,  let  me  press  the 
question.  To  whom  do  we  all,  to  whom  does  the  Commonwealth,  owe  a  sacred 
debt,  if  not  to  the  teachers  of  the  primary  and  the  grammar  schools?  Among 
these  women,  I  have  found  some  of  the  most  delicate,  high-bred,  and  cultivated 
women  whom  I  have  ever  known  of  the  same  age.  Let  any  one  who  sees  them 
collected  on  public  occasions  glance  at  them,  and  judge;  but,  in  cities  at  least, 
these  women  are  never  in  society.  Their  meagre  salaries  prevent  them  from 
dressing  as  ladies  must  be  dressed  for  a  large  company.  For  the  same  reason, 
their  boarding-places  are  obscure  and  lonely.  The  middle  class  of  artisans,  &c., 
who  send  their  children  to  the  public  schools,  seek  no  intercourse  with  those 
whose  refinement  seems  to  isolate  them;  the  upper  class  look  down  upon  them 
very  kindly,  but  never  think  of  inviting  them  to  meet  distinguished  people,  of 
showing  them  rare  books  or  pictures,  of  stimulating  their  worn-out  faculties 
in  any  way.  Why  do  we  not  make  these  teachers  our  first  care?  Should  we 
not  be  more  than  repaid — if  pay  we  must  have — ^by  the  cheer  and  comfort 
added  to  the  schoolroom  in  which  our  children  are  to  be  taught?  I  have  tried 
the  experiment  of  bringing  these  tired  souls  into  contact  with  those  who  ought 


14  THE    COLLEGE. 

She  was  nothing  to  the  town.  She  hired  her  seat, 
and  went  to  church.  She  had  no  vote,  was  never  on 
a  parish  committee,  had  only  one  chance  to  change 
her  position.     That  was  to  remove  to  a  more  con- 


to  refresh  them.  It  does  marvellously  well,  until  the  crucial  question  is  asked 
' '  Who  is  she?  "  If  I  answer, ' '  The  teacher  of  a  primary  school,"  what  a  change 
of  countenance,  what  a  fading  of  the  cordial  smile,  what  passive  indififerencel 
and  this,  in  cases  where,  in  refinement  and  delicacy  of  manner,  the  young 
lady  might  pass  unchallenged  anywhere.  But  let  the  subject  of  my  experi- 
ment be  a  girl  of  genius;  with  such  cultivation  only  as  a  Normal  School  could 
add  to  the  education  of  a  country  home;  deficient  still  in  the  minor  graces  of 
deportment;  too  energetic  and  adventurous,  perhaps,  to  be  elegant;  and  who 
will  take  a  motherly  interest  in  her,  draw  her  within  the  charmed  circle  where 
she  shall  learn  to  carry  herself  with  reserve  and  dignity,  and  to  veil  her  flashing 
powers,  that  they  may  warm  where  they  have  hitherto  consumed? 

No:  I  do  not  exaggerate.  I  believe  we  are  all  concerned  to  know  in  what 
sort  of  homes,  under  what  influences,  with  what  helps  to  health  and  happiness, 
these  lonely  and  isolated  girls  pass  the  hours  when  they  are  not  engaged  in 
teaching.  It  concerns  us,  in  the  first  place,  of  course,  because  theirs  are  the 
direct  influences  which  mould  our  children;  but  I  scorn  that  argument.  It 
concerns  us  far  more  because  they  are  the  children  of  the  same  Father,  engaged 
in  the  most  trying  of  human  vocations,  and  entitled  as  women,  especially  as 
unprotected  women,  to  the  sympathy  of  all  mothers. 

Some  years  ago,  a  lady  not  yet  out  of  her  t«ens,  and  suddenly  reduced  in 
fortune,  went  to  Virginia  to  teach.  She  had  letters  from  persons  of  distinc- 
tion, who  had  known  her  in  her  early  home.  The  letters  were  delivered;  but 
there  the  matter  ended.  But  she  was  one  of  those  persons  who  make  a  place 
for  themselves;  and,  after  the  neighborhood  grew  proud  of  her,  she  was  called 
down  one  day  to  meet  the  wife  of  a  lieutenant  in  the  navy,  to  whom  one  of  her 
letters  had  been  addressed.  ' '  I  am  sorry  I  have  not  called  before,"  apologized 
the  visitor;  "but  there  are  so  many  of  these  teachers!"  She  had  no  time  to  say 
more:  the  yoimg  girl's  cheek  kindled.  "Madam,"  said  she  springing  to  her 
feet,  "I  desire  no  attention  from  you  which  would  not  vmder  any  circumstances 
be  accorded  to  your  daughter's  teacher; "  and  she  left  the  room.  It  is  a  matter 
of  small  importance,  that,  in  this  case,  the  young  teacher  was  soon  placed  in  a 
position  in  which  her  good-will  became  important  to  the  lieutenant's  wife. 

' ' This,"  you  will  say,  "was  at  the  South.  It  grew  out  of  that  spirit  of  'caste' 
which  died  with  slavery."  Is  it  indeed  dead?  Is  there  no  spirit  of  caste  in 
Massachusetts? 


CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   AND    PUBLIC   OPINION.  15 

genial  neighborhood,  at  a  lower  salary;  but  she 
thought  of  her  young  sister,  and  refused.  If  the  com- 
mittee heard  of  it,  they  did  not  offer  to  increase  her 
salary.  They  were  men  incapable  of  appreciating  her 
rare  and  modest  culture.  There  was  a  tendency  to 
consumption  in  her  frame.  Had  she  been  happy,  she 
might  have  resisted  it  for  years,  perhaps  for  ever;  but 
with  the  restless  pining  at  her  heart,  that  mental  and 
moral  marasmus,  the  physical  disease  soon  showed 
itself.  In  the  commencement  of  the  third  year  of  her 
teaching,  she  began  to  cough;  and,  in  less  than  three 
months  from  the  day  when  she  heard  her  last  class, 
she  lay  in  an  early  but  not  unhonored  grave.  The 
deep  affection  of  her  classmates  in  the  Normal 
School  had  always  followed  her;  and  one  who 
chanced  to  hear  of  her  illness  brightened  its  rapid 
decline.  This  woman,  herself  prematurely  old,  in 
consequence  of  twelve  years  of  labor  on  the  Red 
River  of  Louisiana,  the  only  place  open  to  her,  where 
her  abilities  were  appreciated  to  the  extent  of  twelve 
hundred  dollars  a  year,  and  would  enable  her  to  sup- 
port a  widowed  mother, — this  woman,  with  her  now- 
scanty  purse,  supplied  the  invalid  with  fresh  flowers 
and  sweet  pictures;  and,  when  her  heavy  eye  grew 
weary  of  gazing,  gently  closed  it  in  the  sleep  of 
death,  scattered  rare  and  fragrant  blossoms  over  her 
unconscious  form,  and  followed  it  to  the  grave. 
Those  flowers!  brought  daily  to  her  teacher's-desk 
by  a  friendly  or  loving  hand,  they  might  have  fed  a 
craving  heart,  and  saved  a  precious  life. 


16  THE    COLLEGE. 

It  is  no  new  story.  You  have  heard  it  many  times. 
Do  not  reply  in  the  stale  maxims  of  political  econ- 
omy. Do  not  say  that  woman's  labor  is  cheaper  than 
man's,  because  it  is  more  abundant.  Unskilled  labor, 
we  will  grant  you,  is  more  abundant;  but  such  labor 
as  is  here  offered  must  always  be  rare  and  valuable. 
To  the  applicants  who  came  to  fill  her  vacant  place 
the  committee  said,  ''We  do  not  expect  to  find  another 
capable  as  she  was.  We  have  only  to  select  one  that 
will  do.''  Yet  they  had  not  been  ashamed  to  use  that 
capacity  without  paying  for  it!  Only  ignorance 
and  prejudice  and  custom  stood  in  the  way  of  its 
appreciation;  only  the  want  of  that  respect  which  a 
citizen  can  always  command  was  at  the  bottom  of 
her  social  isolation.  She  never  complained;  but  we 
complain  for  her,  sadly  conscious,  that,  until  men 
themselves  perceive  what  is  fit,  the  remonstrances  of 
women  will  be  fruitless.  One  such  word  as  that 
spoken  by  the  Hon.  Joseph  White  at  Framingham, 
in  July,  1864,  is  worth  more  than  all  that  women  can 
say.  Nevertheless,  we  women  have  our  duty.  It  is 
to  convince  and  stimulate  men.  Be  on  the  watch, 
then,  for  such  women;  and  claim  for  them  their  place 
and  remuneration.  Help  society  to  understand  its 
duty,  to  be  frank  and  honorable.  And  if  certain 
services  are  worth,  as  in  this  case,  seventeen  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars  a  year,  pay  for  equal  services,  by 
whomsoever  rendered  an  equal  sum. 

Since  I  first  began  to  speak  upon  this  subject,  a  very 
great  change  has  taken  place :  women  are  put  in  places 


CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   AND    PUBLIC    OPINION.  17 

which  require  higher  culture  and  greater  administra- 
tive capacity.  They  are  also  paid  better  wages :  these 
wages  are  not  yet  in  fair  proportion  to  what  are  paid 
to  men  for  the  same  work;  and  the  shameful  argu- 
ment is  still  used,  that  we  employ  women,  chiefly 
because  men  will  not  work  for  the  same  price.  The 
Roxbury  High  School,  the  Shurtleff  Grammar  School 
in  Chelsea,  the  Normal  School  at  St.  Louis,  and 
the  Normal  School  at  Framingham,  are  now  under 
the  charge  of  women.  In  the  list  of  teachers  from  the 
Oswego  School,  we  find  four  who  are  paid  one 
thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  eleven  who  are  paid 
seven  hundred  dollars.  Our  daily  press  is  very  well 
satisfied  with  this;  but,  since  1860,  what  portion  of  a 
decent  living  will  seven  hundred  dollars  provide  to 
a  cultivated  woman?  When  the  salaries  of  the  St. 
Louis  teachers  were  raised  in  1866,  the  principal  was 
obliged  to  express  her  indignation  before  her  salary 
was  raised  to  its  present  sum  of  two  thousand  dollars. 
Had  she  been  a  man,  she  would  certainly  have  had 
as  much  as  the  principal  of  the  High  School;  namely, 
twenty-seven  hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  A  graduate 
of  Antioch  College,  assisting  in  the  High  School  at  St. 
Louis,  has  twelve  hundred  dollars,  where  a  man  would 
have  seventeen  hundred  dollars.  Miss  Brack- 
ett's  own  assistants  in  the  Normal  School  have  eleven 
hundred  dollars. 

The  appointment  of  Miss  Johnson  to  the  head  of 
the  Normal  School  at  Framingham  will  open  the 
way  to  a  similar  change  in  many  quarters,  if  what 


18  THE    COLLEGE. 

Governor  Bullock  has  not  disdained  to  call  the  ''policy 
of  Massachusetts"  is  consistently  carried  out.  I  do 
not  know  what  salary  is  offered  to  Miss  Johnson; 
but,  if  it  were  equal  to  that  of  the  man  who  preceded 
her,  would  not  the  newspapers  have  told  us?  The 
comparative  value  of  these  sal,aries  is  not  shown  by 
the  figures.  It  depends  on  the  prices  of  gold,  and  of 
food  and  provisions,  each  year.  It  cannot  be  half  as 
great  as  an  inexperienced  person  would  think. 

There  is  a  great  want  of  female  teachers  of  Latin 
and  French.  School  committees  assure  me,  that  pro- 
ficients in  language  would  be  certain  of  good  pay  in 
our  high  schools.  For  the  most  part,  women  prefer 
to  devote  themselves  to  mathematics.  I  used  to  say, 
with  a  smile,  in  the  Western  States,  that  all  the  women 
could  read  the  ''M^canique  Celeste;"  but  they  found 
Caesar  and  Telemaque  equally  uninteresting.  Later, 
Colonel  Higginson  bears  witness  to  the  impossibility 
of  getting  good  classical  teachers. 

It  is  a  common  idea,  that  the  standard  of  education 
is  higher  now  than  it  was  thirty  years  ago.  It  may 
be  doubted.  More  things  are  taught  in  schools, — 
ologies,  isms,  and  the  like;  but  the  most  thorough 
teachers  are  not  the  most  popular,  and  it  may  be 
questioned,  whether  in  the  best  minds  on  the  Conti- 
nent, in  England,  or  this  country,  so  great  progress 
has  been  made  as  has  been  generally  claimed.  There 
is  much  more  liberality  in  regard  to  the  general  ques- 
tion, but  no  more  in  regard  to  the  ideal  standard. 

In  one  of  Niebuhr's  letters  to  Madame  Hensler, 


CHRISTIAN    DEMAND    AND    PUBLIC    OPINION.  19 

he  says,  in  speaking  of  Klopstock:  ''The  character 
of  the  women  is  a  remarkable  feature  of  the  time 
of  Klopstock's  youth.  The  cultivation  of  the  mind 
was  carried  incomparably  farther  with  them  than 
with  nearly  all  the  young  women  of  our  days;  and 
this  we  should  scarcely  have  expected  to  find  in  the 
cotemporaries  of  our  grandmothers.  It  was  not, 
therefore,  the  influence  of  our  native  literature;  for 
that  first  rose  into  being  along  with,  and  under  the 
influence  of,  the  love  inspired  by  these  charming 
maidens.  For  some  time  after  the  Thirty  Years'  War, 
the  ladies  of  Germany,  particularly  those  of  the  mid- 
dle classes,  were  excessively  coarse  and  uneducated. 
This  wonderful  alteration  must  have  taken  place, 
therefore,  during  eighty  years, — between  1660  and 
1740;  though  we  are  quite  ignorant  how  and  when 
it  began." 

Passing  over  to  France,  we  encounter  the  reputa- 
tion of  Madame  de  Sable;  a  woman,  let  me  remark, 
for  the  benefit  of  those  who  are  afraid  that  the  march 
of  education  will  deprive  them  of  their  dinners,  as 
celebrated  for  her  exquisite  cooking  and  delicate 
confections  as  she  was  for  her  literary  ability.  In 
speaking  of  her,  Cousin  says:  ''All  the  literature  of 
maxims  and  thoughts,  including  those  of  La  Roche- 
foucauld, grew  up  in  the  salon  of  a  lovely  woman 
withdrawn  into  a  convent.  Having  no  earthly  pleas- 
ure but  that  of  reliving  her  life,  she  knew  how  to  im- 
part her  own  taste  to  society,  in  which  she  met  by 
chance  an  accomplished  wit,  whom  she  contrived  to 


20  THE    COLLEGE. 

turn  into  a  great  writer."  He  is  speaking  of  the 
early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century;  and,  in  spite  of 
the  notorious  dissipation  of  the  period,  many  gifted 
and  many  virtuous  women  crowded  her  salon, — the 
Princess  Palatine,  the  Princesses  of  Conde,  de  Conti, 
de  Longueville,  and  Schomberg,  Anna  de  Rohan,  and 
Mademoiselle  herself.  There  the  gentlemen  carried 
the  pages  they  wrote  at  home,  and  not  only  bore  with, 
but  accepted,  the  criticisms  of  the  women.  They  had 
no  compensation  but  their  praises,  unless,  like  La 
Rochefoucauld,  they  were  cunning  enough  to  demand 
a  carrot  pottage  or  some  preserved  plums  in  exchange 
for  a  page  of  literature.  In  England,  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  avail  ourselves  of  an  exceptional  education, 
like  that  of  Lady  Jane  Grey.  Remembering  the 
noble  culture  of  Elizabeth  Tudor  and  Mary  Stuart, 
of  the  sturdy  women  of  the  Commonwealth,  we 
might  surely  expect  a  greater  progress  in  the  national 
idea.  But,  if  its  average  could  be  found,  neither  the 
wife  of  John  Hampden  nor  Lady  Russell  would  ac- 
cept it.  It  would  seem  that  our  standard  advance,s 
if  at  all,  by  a  series  of  Hugh  Miller's  parabolic  curves. 
What  we  find,  depends  upon  the  point  at  which  we 
happen  to  test  the  eccentric  arc;  and,  when  we  enter 
the  nineteenth  century,  we  are  forced  to  take  refuge 
in  analogy,  and  ask,  ^'If  the  ancient  Egyptians  ever 
mastered  the  Copernican  idea,  why  should  Galileo 
be  imprisoned  to-day  for  insisting  that  the  sun  does 
not  move  round  the  earth?"  The  stimulating  ex- 
amples of  noble  and  educated  women,   which  now 


CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   AND   PUBLIC   OPINION.         21 

present  themselves,  do  not  cheer  us  as  they  should, 
while  they  remain  exceptions.  In  making  what  Dick- 
ens would  call  an  '' indiscriminate  and  incontinent'* 
excursion,  into  the  regions  of  female  thought  and 
literature,  we  find  its  atmosphere  in  a  somewhat 
un ventilated  condition,  and  are  reminded  of  an 
opinion  of  the  Druses  which  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  wholly  impertinent,  that  ''literature  is  a  mean 
and  contemptible  occupation,  jit  only  for  women  J* 
Twenty  years  ago,  when  ties  of  an  almost  filial  ten- 
derness linked  us  to  the  household  of  the  late  Judge 
Cranch,  we  have  often  followed  him,  unrecognized,  of 
a  Saturday  afternoon,  when,  returning  from  the  bench, 
he  climbed  Capitol  Hill,  one  hand  grasping  the  handle 
of  some  colored  washerwoman's  basket,  or  slinging 
her  heavy  bundle  over  his  shoulder  on  a  stick.  The 
dear  remembrance,  sustained  by  all  the  sweet  and 
delicate  courtesies  of  his  private  life,  has  always 
lain  side  by  side  in  our  mind  with  that  exquisite 
Essay  of  Elia  to  which  he  first  directed  our  atten- 
tion, in  which  a  noble  reverence  to  woman  is  incul- 
cated, and  we  are  taught  to  judge  every  man's  respiect 
for  the  sex  by  his  demeanor  towards  its  humblest 
representative.  Yet,  if  Judge  Cranch  never  swerved 
from  his  gracious  dignity,  Charles  Lamb  did.  Wo- 
man had  not  gained,  in  his  life-time,  such  a  hold  upon 
her  intellectual  rights,  that  a  dinner  company  dared 
chide  him,  when  he  said  of  Letitia  Landon,  ''If  she 
belonged  to  me,  I  would  lock  her  up,  and  feed  her  on 
bread  and  water,  till  she  gave  up  writing  poetry.     A 


22  THE    COLLEGE. 

female  poet,  or  female  author  of  any  kind,  ranks  be- 
low an  actress,  I  think." 

We  do  not  quote  these  words  so  much  against 
Lamb  himself, — for  the  lips  of  Mary  Lamb's  brother 
must  have  been  thick  with  wine,  when,  with  ''stam- 
mering, insufficient  sound,"  he  included  her  in  so 
sweeping  a  reprobation, — but  to  indicate  the  nature 
of  that  public  opinion  which  is  even  now  dwarfing 
the  ideals  of  the  best  men;  to  show  how  little  rehance 
is  to  be  placed  on  the  standard  of  the  most 
generous,  when  a  remark  like  this,  uttered  in  a  large 
literary  circle,  passes  without  criticism,  and  is  re- 
corded without  conscious  mortification, — recorded,  too, 
by  the  father  of  the  Coventry  Patmore,  who  has 
known  how  to  offer  us,  in  later  times,  sugar-plums  of 
his  own  coloring — let  us  add  of  his  own  poisoning 
also — under  the  alluring  names  of  ''betrothals"  and 
"espousals."  How  far  the  facts  are  from  the  ideal 
standard,  Mrs.  Jameson,  in  a  lecture  lately  delivered, 
will  help  us  to  show. 

"With  all  our  schools,"  she  says,  "of  all  denomi- 
nations, it  remains  an  astounding  fact,  that  one-half 
of  the  women  who  annually  become  wives,  in  this 
England  of  ours,  cannot  sign  their  names  in  the  par- 
ish register;  and  that  this  amount  of  ignorance  in 
the  lower  classes  is  accompanied  with  an  amount  of 
ill-health,  despondency,  inaptitude,  and  uselessness  in 
the  so-called  educated  classes,  which,  taken  together, 
prove  that  our  boasted  appliances  are  to  a  great  ex- 
tent failures." 


CHRISTIAN    DEMAND    AND    PUBLIC    OPINION.  23 

The  ancient  standard  of  Italy  was  very  high,  even 
in  the  fifteenth  century,  if  we  consider  only  the  liter- 
ary skill  or  mathematical  culture  frequently  desired 
and  attained;  but  Anna  Maria  Mozzoni  may  con- 
gratulate herself  on  having  given  a  moral  and  social 
impetus  to  it,  which  it  has  never  before  received. 
Her  wise,  considerate,  philosophical  suggestions  will 
meet  the  cordial  welcome  of  all  right-minded  women. 
If  followed  out,  they  will  create  nobler  women  than 
Tamborni  or  Laura  Veratti.* 

There  was  no  institution  in  England  for  the  proper 
training  of  sick  nurses,  when  Florence  Nightingale 
went  to  Kaiserswerth,  a  small  town  near  Dlisseldorf, 
on  the  Rhine,  to  prepare  herself  to  take  charge  of  the 
Female  Sanitorium.  In  Great  Britain,  at  this  mo- 
ment., the  excess  of  the  female  population  over  the 
male  amounts  to  five  hundred  thousand  souls;  and 
from  all  directions  we  hear  the  cry,  that  men  need 
educated  assistants.  What  is  the  country  doing  to 
answer  this  cry,  to  educate  her  five  hundred  thousand 
women?  In  1825  Dr.  Gooch  made  a  noble  appeal 
to  the  English  public,  in  behalf  of  educating  women 
to  be  nurses;  but  there  was  no  response.  When  the 
first  school  of  design  was  started,  a  petition  was  drawn 
up  and  signed,  praying  that  women  might  not  be 
taught,  at  the  expense  of  the  Government,  arts  which 
would  interfere  with  the  employment  of  men,  and 
*'take  the  bread  out  of  their  mouths"! 


*  Un  Passo  Avanti  nella  Cultura  Femminile  Fesi  e  Progetto  di  Anna  Maria 
Mozzoni  Milano.     1866. 


24  THE    COLLEGE. 

Here  was  an  absurd  interference  with  the  right  of 
feeding,  on  the  part  of  these  petitioners!  As  if  wo- 
men did  not  want  bread  as  well  as  men;  and  being, 
according  to  authority,  the  less  intelligent  and  weaker 
sex,  one  would  suppose  that  to  help  them  to  find  it 
might  be  a  part  of  that  protection  to  which  the  Gov- 
ernment stands  pledged,  and  for  which  their  property 
is  taxed. 

''But,"  says  Mrs.  Jameson,  ''if  a  petition  were 
drawn  up,  and  handed  to  medical  men,  praying  that 
women  should  not  be  trained  as  nurses,  nor  taught 
the  laws  of  health,  I  am  afraid  there  are  well-inten- 
tioned men,  who  would,  at  the  time,  be  induced  to 
sign  it;  but  I  believe  that  twenty,  nay  even  ten  years 
hence,  they  would  look  back  upon  their  signatures 
with  as  much  disgust  and  amazement  as  is  now  ex- 
cited by  the  attempt  to  explode  and  sneer  down  the 
school  at  Marlborough  House." 

Another  noble  English  woman,  Mrs.  Barbara  Leigh 
Bodichon,  in  a  recent  pamphlet  called  "Woman  and 
Work,"  gives  us  the  correspondence  between  Jessie 
Meriton  White  and  the  various  medical  schools  to 
which  she  applied  for  admission.  This  lady  had  for 
several  years  had  charge  of  two  little  lame  children, 
one  of  them  her  own  nephew.  The  latter,  on  account 
of  some  structural  defect,  had  broken  his  leg  sixteen 
times.  Once,  when  suitable  attendance  was  not  to 
be  had,  his  aunt  set  and  splintered  it  herself.  The 
physician  who  examined  it  advised  her  to  apply  for 
instruction.     She  applied  to  fourteen  medical  institu- 


CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   AND   PUBLIC   OPINION.         25 

tions  in  the  city  of  London,  asking  sometimes  for 
private  anatomical  instruction.  The  correspondence 
with  four  colleges  in  the  year  1856  is  given, — from 
the  St.  George's,  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons,  St. 
Bartholomew's  Hospital,  and  the  University  of  Lon- 
don. It  amply  bears  out  her  assertion,  that  she  was 
nowhere  met  with  solid  objections,  or  with  sensible 
and  logical  replies.  Sometimes  she  was  told  of  the  in- 
delicacy of  her  request!  The  University  of  London, 
which  was  legally  bound  by  its  charter  to  receive  her, 
treated  her  as  coolly  as  the  rest;  and  in  no  case  was 
any  individual  regret  expressed  for  the  official  de- 
cision. 

Indelicacy,  forsooth !  Where  can  we  find  it,  if  not 
in  the  impure  nature  which  raises  the  objection,  and 
the  low  manner  of  thinking  in  general  society  which 
consents  to  receive  it?  May  not  the  mother,  who  re- 
ceives her  naked  new-born  child  from  the  hand  of 
God,  fitly  ask  to  understand  the  liabilities  of  its  little 
frame?  May  not  the  wife,  called  in  seasons  of  sick- 
ness to  the  most  delicate  and  trying  duties,  modestly 
ask  for  that  thorough  culture  which  alone  can  make 
those  duties  easy?  And  who  make  this  objection? 
Men  who  go  shuddering  and  half-drunken  into  the 
dissecting  room,  to  scatter  vile  jests  above  that  pros- 
trate temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost!  Men  who  see 
nothing  in  the  exquisite  development  of  God's  crea- 
tion, but  the  reflection  of  their  own  obscene  lives! 
Students  who  know  no  better  way  to  steel  their 
courage  to  the  use  of  the  scalpel  than  to  play  at 


26  THE    COLLEGE. 

foot-ball  on  the  college  green  with  a  human  skull, 
holding  its  dignity  to  the  level  of  their  own  honor!* 

The  best  hope  that  Jessie  Meriton  White  has  for 
England  is,  that  some  of  the  most  distinguished  pro- 
fessors shall  consent  in  time  to  take  classes  of  female 
students. 

The  office  of  the  physician  is  as  holy  as  that  of  the 
priest:  formerly  they  were  one;  nbw,  at  least,  the 
physician  should  be  priest-like.  Irreverence  and  im- 
purity should  be  banished  from  medical  ranks.  The 
science  of  medicine  stands  in  great  need  of  the  in- 
tuitive genius  of  woman.  In  pursuing  it,  she  will 
need  the  steady  caution  of  man.  In  this  country  and 
in  France,  earnest  and  devoted  students  of  both  sexes 
have  stood  in  the  dissecting  room  to  the  benefit  of 
both.  So  let  them  continue  to  stand,  till  the  spirit  is 
known  by  its  fruits.  An  impure  man  is  no  better 
than  an  impure  woman;  but  impurity  among  men 
may  be  concealed.  Let  it  come  between  the  two 
sexes,  and  it  will  be  brought  at  once  into  antagonism 
with  society,  and  will  meet  its  true  desert.  The  objec- 
tion reveals  the  secrets  of  the  medical  college,  and  is 
the  strongest  argument  ever  offered  for  the  medical 
education  of  women. 

If  women  are  to  practise  as  physicians,  some  means 
should  be  taken  to  protect  society  against  those  who 
are  imperfectly  educated.     What  a  degree  means  will 


*  I  would  gladly  expunge  the  bitter  reproof  of  these  lines;  but  they  record  a 
fact  which  occurred  at  a  medical  school,  where  such  an  application  was  made, 
and  must  stand  as  history. 


CHRISTIAN    DEMAND    AND    PUBLIC    OPINION.  27 

always  be  doubtful,  until  men  and  women  receive 
their  degrees  in  the  same  way  and  from  the  same 
hands.  America  stands  greatly  in  need  of  this  pro- 
tection. Crowds  of  unauthorized,  half-educated  wo- 
men, some  of  whom  have  not  been  ashamed  to  cross 
the  Atlantic,  and  have  attracted  such  sympathy 
abroad  as  only  a  different  class  of  students  deserve, 
are  thronging  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  as  well  as 
haunting  with  their  empiricai  pretensions  the  purlieus 
of  the  seaboard  cities.  If  men  had  received  properly 
trained  women  into  their  colleges  and  medical  socie- 
ties, this  would  not  have  happened.  Cannot  such 
physicians  as  Dr.  Zakrzewska,  Dr.  Blackwell,  Dr. 
Sewall,  Dr.  Tyng,  and  Dr.  Ross  of  Milwaukee,  unite 
to  organize  a  Woman's  Medical  Society,  with  an 
examining  board  whose  diploma  shall  attest  the  char- 
acter of  the  member?  Dr.  Storer's  admirable  pam- 
phlet entitled  ''Why  not?"  points  out  an  evil,  which 
will  never  be  remedied  by  thrusting  empirical  women 
into  the  positions  now  held  by  unscrupulous  men.* 


*  The  three  parts  of  this  book  have  been  made  to  conform  to  the  census  and 
statistics  of  the  year  1850.  To  bring  them  up  to  the  year  1860  would  require  a 
repetition  of  all  the  labor  originally  devoted  to  the  question.  That  would  be 
unwise  if  it  were  possible,  for  it  could  not  alter  the'  bearing  of  any  statements; 
and  it  is  not  possible,  because  we  have  now  no  certain  values  in  America.  I 
had  from  the  first  intended  to  indicate  in  notes  any  important  changes  that  had 
taken  place  in  this  decade.  I  had  earnestly  hoped  to  be  able  to  contradict 
here  the  statements  in  the  text  in  regard  to  medical  opportunities  for  women, 
and  the  proper  training  of  sick  nurses,  in  England.  But  my  EngUsh  corre- 
spondents assure  me  that  I  have  no  occasion  to  change  any  thing;  that  the 
facts  remain  substantially  what  they  were  when  my  manuscript  was  written. 

"But,"  says  some  watchful  woman,  "has  not  Miss  Garrett  taken  her  degree 


28  THE    COLLEGE. 

And  what  have  we  to  say  of  our  own  country? 
Has  the  American  standard  reached  a  safe  altitude, 
or  must  we  admit  that  it  has  the  same  limitations? 
A  popular  width  of  view  we  have  certainly  gained 
in  the  last  half-century;  but  have  we  made  secure 
progress  in  the  right  direction?  Some  eighty  years 
ago,  John  Adams  wrote  of  his  wife,  ''This  lady  was 
more  beautiful  than  Lady  Russell,  had  a  brighter 
genius,  more  information,  and  more  refined  taste,  and 
was  at  least  her  equal  in  virtues  of  the  heart,  in 
fortitude  and  firmness  of  character,  in  resignation  to 


from  Apothecaries'  Hall?  and  have  not  a  few  women  at  least  been  trained  as 
sick  nurses?" 

There  is  still  no  institution  for  the  training  of  sick  nurses,  as  the  text  asserts. 
Some  few  have  been  trained  in  hospitals  and  the  like,  on  conditions  of  service, 
or  to  supply  the  need  of  such  institutions  themselves.  How  does  the  matter 
stand  with  Miss  Garrett?  The  press  has  made  the  most  of  her  success:  it  lies 
with  us  to  exhibit  the  naked  truth.  After  applying  in  vain  to  the  various  medi- 
cal colleges.  Miss  Garrett  went  to  Apothecaries'  Hall.  Here  they  refused  her; 
but  she  looked  up  their  charter.  She  found  the  word  indicating  to  whom  degrees 
should  be  granted  indeterminate,  with  no  character  of  sex  attached  to  it.  Law- 
yers told  her  the  hall  must  grant  her  a  degree,  or  surrender  its  charter.  She 
was  wealthy,  and  in  earnest.  She  pushed  her  advantage.  "The  Apothecaries* 
Hall"  prescribed  certain  courses  of  instruction  to  be  pursued  and  certified  before 
the  degree  could  be  granted.  These  she  pursued  in  private,  paying  the  most  ex- 
orbitant rates  for  her  instruction.  In  one  instance,  for  a  course  of  lectures,  to 
which  a  man's  fee  would  have  been  five  guineas,  she  paid  fifty;  and  I  am  credibly 
informed  that  the  round  cost  of  these  preparatory  steps  must  have  amounted  to 
two  thousand  pounds.  All  honor  to  Miss  Garrett!  Should  her  genuis  as  a  phy- 
sician equal  her  energy  and  her  wealth,  she  may'gain  something  for  the  cause  she 
has  espoused,  by  the  honor  and  consideration  she  will  win  for  her  sex.  Apart 
from  this,  it  will  be  seen,  she  has  gained  nothing.  Bribery  is  not  possible  to 
ordinary  mortals;  and  the  conditions  of  the  degree,  in  the  present  state  of 
public  feeling,  would  make  it  wholly  impracticable. 

The  case,  as  it  has  been  stated  to  us,  is  an  exemplification,  on  a  gigantic 
scale,  of  all  that  we  complain  of;  and  proves  our  statement,  that  women  have 
not  won  an  education  for  themselves,  till  they  win  with  it  its  legitimate  results. 


CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   AND    PUBLIC    OPINION.  29 

the  will  of  Heaven,  and  in  all  the  virtues  and  graces 
of  the  Christian  life.  Like  Lady  Russell,  she  never 
discouraged  her  husband  from  running  all  hazards 
for  the  salvation  of  his  country's  liberties;  she  was 
willing  to  share  with  me,  and  that  her  children  should 
share  with  us  both,  in  all  the  dangerous  consequences 
we  had  to  hazard." 

Will  America  ever  offer  to  the  world  a  nobler  pic- 
ture? Is  it  at  this  moment  above  or  below  our  aver- 
age ideal?  ,  ''With  such  a  mother,"  said  John  Quincy 
Adams,  in  Boston,  less  than  tweiity  years  ago,  "with 


For  their  opportunities  as  things  now  stand,  all  over  the  world,  women  pay  a 
premium  on  the  terms  offered  to  men.  Let  them  take  these  opportunities  as 
tools,  and  try  to  win  their  bread  with  them,  and  the  wages  offered  are,  as  a  rule, 
a  large  discount  on  those  offered  to  men.  Political  economy  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  exceptional  cases  in  which  this  is  most  evident, — only  the  common, 
habitual  idea,  that  the  wages  of  women  must  be  kept  down;  and  that,  to  do  it, 
the  value  of  superior  labor  must  not  be  recognized,  as  in  the  case  of  the  female 
teacher  quoted  in  the  text. 

In  the  Report  of  St.  Mary's  Dispensary  for  Women  and  Children,  in  Mary- 
lebone,  I  find  Miss  Elizabeth  Garrett  mentioned  as  the  General  Medical  Attend- 
ant. The  Devonshire-square  Nursing  Institute,  established,  I  think,  by  Mrs. 
Fry,  twenty  years  ago,  sends  out  nurses  on  the  request  of  clergymen.  Several 
sisters  give  their  whole  time  to  it. 

King's  College  pays  one  thousand  poimds  annually  for  nurses  to  St.  John's 
Home. 

St.  Thomas's  Hospital,  where  nurses  are  being  trained  by  the  Nightingale 
fund,  rejected  fifty  applications  in  six  months. 

The  excitement  in  England  has  had  a  wholesome  effect  upon  colonial  action. 
The  East-Indian  Government  has  lately  given  Lady  Canning  twenty  thousand 
rupees,  to  assist  in  building  a  home  for  the  Calcutta  Nurses'  Institute;  and  a 
movement  is  making  in  India  to  educate  native  women  as  physicians.  See, 
in  the  Appendix,  the  account  of  Miss  Nightingale's  School  for  Niu"ses  in  Liver- 
pool. 

Since  the  above  was  written,  in  January,  1867,  three  ladies  have  taken  their 
degrees  at  Apothecaries'  Hall,  having  passed  a  good  examination,  in  Euclid, 
arithmetic,  English  history,  and  Latin.  The  cost  of  these  degrees  has  not  trans- 
pired. 


30  THE    COLLEGE. 

such  a  mother,  it  has  been  the  perpetual  instruction  of 
my  life  to  love  and  reverence  the  female  sex;  but  I  have 
been  taught  also — and  the  lesson  is  still  more  deeply 
impressed — I  have  been  taught  not  to  flatter  them." 
Noble  words!  Gentlemen  to  whom  it  falls  to  de- 
liver annually  Normal-school  addresses  would  do  well 
to  take  a  lesson  from  them.  They  would  wince  a 
little,  could  they  hear  the  criticisms  of  the  indignant 
girls  upon  their  actual  advice  and  praise.  How  would 
these  men  have  liked  it,  if  at  fifteen  they  had  been 
addressed  as  fathers  of  an  unborn  generation,  whose 
especial  duty  it  was  to  adapt  themselves  to  this 
sphere?  And  why  should  men  complain,  that  women 
look  to  marriage,  and  marriage  only,  as  salvation,  if 
the  whole  tenor  of  their  own  influence  is  used  to  em- 
phasize it  as  woman's  ^'manifest  destiny"?  ''Are 
there  not  ^1^0  married,  and  where  is  the  one?  "  What 
propriety  is  there  is  assuming,  in  advance,  that  the 
sphere  which  married  life  opens  has  a  stronger  hold 
on  one  sex  than  the  other? 

We  have  said  enough  to  show,  that  in  Germany, 
France,  England,  and  America,  the  ideal  standard  of 
education  was  sufficiently  high  over  a  century  ago. 
Why  has  not  such  actual  progress  been  made  as 
might  have  been  expected? 

Because  public  opinion  has  constantly  thwarted 
the  ideal  growth.  Educated  women  have,  for  the 
most  part,  wanted  courage  to  do  what  is  right,  un- 
less sustained  by  men.  In  education,  for  the  duties 
of    which    they    are    acknowledged    to    be    superior, 


CHRISTIAN   DEMAND    AND    PUBLIC    OPINION.         31 

they  have  never  insisted  on  the  changes  they  knew 
to  be  necessary,  but  have  uniformly  succumbed  to 
the  masculine  idea.  Shall  we  blame  them?  Is  a 
conflict  in  the  heart  of  a  family  a  pleasant  thing? 
Certainly,  the  hand  which  the  magnanimous  sympathy 
of  men  has  set  free  cannot  cast  the  first  stone.  The 
slowness  and  faithlessness  of  men  too  often  paralyzes 
the  best  efforts  of  women.  The  faith  which  Isabella 
showed  Columbus,  would  be,  at  this  moment,  a  grate- 
ful return  from  them.  Charles  Lamb  has  shown  us 
how  valueless  to  the  working  woman  the  support  of 
delicate  sentiment  may  be.  The  ringing  of  the  glasses 
round  a  table  dulled  his  exquisite  ear  to  the  fine 
spheral  harmonies  it  had  once  caught.  He  broke,  in 
an  after-dinner  tilt,  the  very  lance  with  which  he  had 
pierced  to  the  heart  of  the  enemy's  shield.  If  the 
ideal  standard  makes  no  headway  against  public 
opinion,  what  encouragement  to  our  hopes  does  com- 
mon life  offer? 

As  exquisite  beauty  of  water,  hill,  and  dale  lies  hid- 
den in  many  a  country  hamlet,  unheeded  by  the  guide- 
book, unsuspected  by  the  traveller  on  the  turnpike 
road;  so,  in  society,  self-sacrifice,  noble  daring,  and 
saintly  perseverance,  nestle  behind  the  prominent  fail- 
ure. We  find  them  everywhere,  except  where  we 
should  most  naturally  look  for  them. 

There  is  in  England  a  Society  for  the  Promotion  of 
Female  Education  in  the  East.  It  undertakes  to  do 
abroad  precisely  the  work  that  its  individual  members 
refuse  to  assist  the  community  to  do  at  home.     Con- 


32  THE    COLLEGE. 

sequently,  their  printed  schemes  read  like  satires  on 
their  individual  convictions.  In  the  year  1835,  Miss 
Alice  Holliday  called  the  attention  of  this  society  to 
the  condition  of  women  in  Egypt  and  Abyssinia.  She 
asked  their  sanction  to  her  attempt  to  educate  the 
women  of  Egypt,  with  an  ultimate  view  to  those  of 
Abyssinia,  whose  condition  chiefly  interested  her.  She 
had  pursued  a  severe  course  of  study,  unfriended  and 
alone,  before  she  asked  this  help.  She  had  studied 
the  severe  sciences,  the  antiquities  and  customs  of  the 
countries  themselves,  and  the  Arabic  and  Coptic  lan- 
guages. She  was  fortunate  also  in  stirring  the  enthu- 
siasm of  a  certain  Miss  Rogers,  who,  unable  to  teach, 
was  yet  willing  to  accompany  her  friend,  and  devote 
her  fortune  to  their  mutual  support.  As  these  ladies 
wanted  no  money  from  the  society  they  consulted,  they 
were  received  as  agents  without  difficulty,  and  reached 
Alexandria  in  the  autumn  of  1836.  At  this  time 
Miss  Holliday  wrote:  ''The  condition  of  the  Coptic 
women  is  truly  lamentable.  Their  abodes  are  like  the 
filthiest  holes  in  London;  yet  their  persons  are  decked 
out  in  the  most  costly  apparel.  I  have  seen  ladies 
sitting  at  their  latticed  windows,  their  heads  and  necks 
adorned  with  pearls  and  diamonds  of  the  highest 
value,  their  bodies  covered  with  the  richest  silks  and 
velvets,  while  the  room  they  occupied  was  the  most 
disgusting  scene  you  can  imagine.  Smoking  and 
sleeping  occupy  their  time.  Female  schools  have 
never  had  an  existence,  and  the  prejudice  against 
them  is  very  strong." 


CHRISTIAN    DEMAND   AND    PUBLIC   OPINION.         33 

We  can  recall  the  argument  used  in  those  Eastern 
lands,  and  the  answer  which  civilization  offered.  ''I 
am  afraid  to  teach  my  women,"  said  the  Turk:  ''they 
are  already  crafty  and  impure.  To  gather  them  into 
public  places  is  to  offer  a  premium  on  immodesty, 
and  a  temptation  to  misconduct."  The  Christian 
answered  proudly,  ''We  can  trust  our  women;  yes, 
even  in  Paris  and  London." 

Soon  after  their  arrival,  Miss  Rogers  diedf  but  her 
friend  was  not  discouraged.  In  the  following  March 
an  officer  of  state,  Hekekyan  Effendi,  came  to  inquire 
whether  she  would  take  charge  of  the  royal  women, 
one  hundred  in  number,  and  the  nearest  relatives  of  the 
sovereign.  Much  depended,  it  was  thought,  upon  the 
co-operation  of  the  oldest  daughter,  Nas-lee  Hanoom ; 
and  it  was  His  Highnesses  desire  that  the  heads  of  the 
family  should  be  formed  into  a  committee  to  extend 
female  schools.  See  how  this  Mohammedan  officer 
writes  to  Miss  Holliday. 

"You  have  no  doubt  read  much  about  hareems,"  he 
says,  "yet  little,  Ifear,  that  resembles  the  truth.  We 
pay  great  respect  to  women  and  aged  persons,  what- 
ever may  be  our  own  rank.  Our  children,  however, 
are  uneducated,  in  the  European  sense  of  the  term. 
Besides  being  illiterate,  they  know  nothing  of  do- 
mestic economy;  and,  in  the  middling  and  lower 
classes,  of  the  community,  this  ignorance  is  so  pro- 
found as  to  endanger,  by  its  dire  consequences,  do- 
mestic health,  peace,  and  prosperity.  This  want  is 
the  first  cause  of  slavery  and  its  concom.tant  vices. 

7 


34  THE    COLLEGE. 

In  seconding  the  illustrious  efforts  of  Mehemet  Ali,  I 
have  been  able  to  trace  our  debasement  as  a  nation  to 
no  other  cause  than  the  want  of  a  useful  and  efficient 
moral  education  for  our  women.  In  giving  to  them 
enlightened  education,  we  shall  be  striking  at  the  root 
of  the  evils  that  afflict  us;  we  shall  diminish  the  dan- 
gers and  misfortunes  which  proceed  from  ignorance 
and  idleness.  Habits  of  industry,  cleanliness,  order, 
and  economy,  by  increasing  happiness,  make  us  mor- 
ally better,  and  will  secure  that  moral  training  to  our 
children  which  no  subsequent  effort  is  sufficient  to 
replace." 

So  true  is  it  that  the  value  of  words  is  compara- 
tive, that  all  this  might  have  been  written  by  some 
Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Education  in  Massachu- 
setts. The  arguments  of  the  Turk  and  Effendi  are 
very  familiar  to  us.  Modern  civilized  society  shuti 
women  out  of  schools  to  protect  their  modesty. 
Modern  professors  tell  us  how  much  they  respect  wo- 
men, and  value  material  training,  at  the  very  moment 
when  they  bar  the  gates  of  life  against  her.  On  the 
27th  of  March,  1838,  Miss  HoUiday  went  in  state 
to  the  hareem.  She  was  preceded  by  the  two  janis- 
saries attached  to  the  English  Consulate,  bearing  their 
silver  wands  of  office,  and  accompanied  by  the  wife 
of  Hekekyan.  In  the  ante-room  they  were  regaled 
with  coffee  out  of  golden  cups  set  with  diamonds. 
Young  Georgian  girls  of  great  beauty  brought  sherbet 
and  massive  pipes  with  amber  mouth-pieces.  They 
were  then  introduced  to  the  Princess  Nas-lee,  a  little 


CHRISTIAN   DEMAND    AND    PUBLIC   OPINION.         35 

woman  about  forty,  simply  dressed;  and,  before  the 
interview  ended,  Alice  had  promised  to  spend  four 
hours  of  every  day  in  the  hareem.  She  began  with 
instruction  that  tended  to  civilize  daily  life;  and  boxes 
of  embroidery  and  baby-clothes,  made  for  patterns  in 
England,  excited  the  first  lively  interest.  She  declined 
all  invitations  to  take  up  her  abode  in  the  hareem, 
although  promised  entire  liberty.  She  was  humhUy 
and,  as  a  consequence,  wise.  She  did  not  expect  great 
results,  or  look  for  much  enthusiasm,  in  the  hareem. 

In  August,  she  writes:  ''My  visits  have  been  at- 
tended with  the  most  cheering  success.  I  am  received 
and  honored  with  every  possible  distinction; but,  added 
to  my  school,  it  is  a  great  fatigue."  Her  character  in 
every  way  sustained  the  effect  of  her  teaching.  She 
was  offered  thirty  pounds  a  month  for  her  attendance 
at  the  hareem,  but  thought  ten  pounds  sufficient,  and 
would  accept  no  more.  In  October,  a  box  of  presents 
was  received  from  England.  When  Hekekyan  was 
invited  to  look  into  this  box,  he  seized  upon  some 
scientific  plates  sent  to  the  young  princess.  ''Ah!'* 
said  he,  "these  are  the  things  we  need."  The  Pacha 
was  captivated,  in  ^his  turn,  by  an  orrery,  and  a  model 
of  the  Thames  Tunnel.  The  hareem  sent  back  a  sim- 
ilar box,  and  Nas-lee  herself  worked  a  scarf  for  the 
queen.  Miss  Holliday  was  soon  ordered  to  translate 
some  of  her  books  into  Turkish;  and  her  princesses 
wrote  touching  letters  to  their  English  friends.  Soon 
after,  we  find  this  indefatigable  woman  teaching  Eng- 
lish, French,  drawing,  and  writing,  in  the  hareem  of  a 


36  THE    COLLEGE. 

late  Governor  of  Cairo.  Education  must  begin  with 
languages;  for  Egypt  has  no  literature  to  offer  to  her 
children.  In  1840  Victoria  sent  to  the  hareem  a  por- 
trait of  herself,  which  was  carried  in  procession  and 
hung  with  proper  honors  by  the  side  of  that  of  the 
pacha.  Very  soon  canie  an  Egyptian  Society  for  the 
Promotion  of  Female  Education.  Scientific  instru- 
ments and  books  were  ordered.  An  infant  school  be- 
gan with  one  hundred  and  fifty  children.  The  hareem 
demanded  another  teacher,  and  Mrs.  Lieder  was  sent 
out.  Ih  1844  a  male  school  wus  formed,  and  Euro- 
pean teachers  imported.  The  young  girls,  who  had 
begun  with  needle-work  eight  years  before,  were  now 
studying  Turkish,  Persian,  and  Arabic,  geography, 
arithmetic,  and  drawing.  ''What  a  change,"  writes 
Alice  in  1846, — "what  a  change  within  the  last  ten 
years!  When  I  came  to  Egypt,  there  was  not  a  wo- 
man who  could  read;  and  now  some  hundreds  have 
not  only  the  power,  but  the  best  books.  Year  after 
year,  I  have  been  permitted  to  see  the  growth  of  a 
new  civilization.  What  a  change  has  come  over  the 
royal  family  since  I  first  entered  it!  The  desire  for 
trifles  is  preparing  the  way  for  our  noblest  gifts;  and 
a  fatal  blow  has  been  struck  at  the  whole  system 
of  hareems."  It  would  be  pleasant  to  trace  this  de- 
voted woman  farther,  to  know  whether  she  still  lives, 
and  if  she  has  reached  the  Abyssinian  plains.  In  this 
humble  way  began  the  great  educational  movement 
in  Egypt,  which  gave  strength  and  vitality  to  Me- 
hemet   All's   best-considered   plans,   which   has   sent 


CHRISTIAN    DEMAND    AND    PUBLIC    OPINION.  37 

scores  of  young  princes  to  Paris,  and  will  eventually 
change  the  face  of  the  whole  land. 

Alice  Holliday  succeeded,  because  the  ''sinews  of 
war'' — namely,  the  "purse-strings" — were  in  her  own 
hands.  Very  similar  in  spirit  was  the  enterprise  of 
Madame  Luce  in  Algiers,  of  which  Madame  Bodichon 
has  given  an  interesting  account.  Madame  Luce  went 
to  Algiers,  soon  after  the  conquest,  about  1834,  and 
was  probably  a  teacher  in  the  family  of  one  of  the 
resident  functionaries.  In  1845,  nearly  nine  years  after 
Alice  had  begun  her  Egyptian  labors,  Madame  Luce 
was  a  widow,  with  very  little  money  to  devote  to 
the  work  on  which  she  had  set  her  heart;  namely,  a 
school  to  civilize  the  women  of  Algiers.  Government 
was  already  beginning  to  instruct  the  men;  but  the 
Mohammedan  dread  of  proselytism  stood  in  their 
way.  The  women  were  in  the  worst  state, — closely 
veiled,  taught  no  manual  arts,  having  no  skill  in 
housekeeping  even, — for  the  simple  life  of  a  warm 
climate,  the  scanty  furniture,  give  no  scope  for  such 
skill.  To  wash  their  linen,  to  clamber  over  the  roofs 
to  make  calls,  to  offer  coffee  and  receive  it,  to  dress 
very  splendidly  at  times,  very  untidily  always,  was 
the  synopsis  of  their  lives.  They  did  not  know  their 
own  ages,  yet  were  liable  to  be  sold  in  marriage  at 
the  age  of  ten.  Upon  such  material,  and  at  such  a 
time, — when  the  value  of  a  Moorish  woman  was  esti- 
mated, like  that  of  a  cow,  by  her  weight, — Madame 
Luce  undertook  to  work.  She  had  a  Christian  cour- 
age in  her  heart,  which  might  put  many  a  man  to 
shame. 


38  THE    COLLEGE. 

While  laying  her  plans,  she  had  perfected  herself 
in  the  native  tongue,  and  now  commenced  a  campaign 
among  the  families  of  her  acquaintance,  coaxing  them 
to  trust  their  little  girls  to  her  for  three  or  four  hours 
a  day,  that  they  might  be  taught  to  read  and  write 
French,  and  also  to  sew  neatly.  Her  presents,  her 
philanthropic  tact,  her  solemn  promise  not  to  interfere 
in  ma-tters  of  religion,  won  for  her,  at  length,  four  little 
girls,  whom  she  took  to  her  own  hired  house  without  a 
moment's  delay.  As  the  rumor  of  her  success  spread, 
one  child  after  another  dropped  in,  till  she  had  more 
than  thirty.  Finding  the  experiment  answer  beyond 
her  hopes,  she  was  compelled  to  demand  assistance  of 
the  local  government.  Men  have  no  faith  in  quixotic 
undertakings.  As  might  have  been  expected,  they 
complimented  Madame  Luce  upon  her  energy,  saw 
no  use  in  educating  Moorish  women,  and  declined  to 
assist  her.  She  waited,  in  breathless  suspense,  till  the 
day  on  which  the  Council  were  to  meet,  bribing  the 
parents,  clothing  the  children,  and  pursuing  her  noble 
work.  ''Surely,"  she  thought,  ''they  will  devise  some 
plan;"  but  the  twilight  of  the  30th  of  December 
closed  in,  and  they  had  not  even  alluded  to  her  school. 
On  the  1st  of  January,  1846,  it  was  closed.  Nine 
hundred  miles  from  Paris,  without  the  modern  con- 
veniences of  transport,  what  do  you  suppose  this 
woman  did?  Could  she  give  up?  She  scorned  an  offer 
of  personal  remuneration  made  by  a  few  gentlemen, 
and  told  them  that  what  she  wanted  was  adequate 
support  for  a  national  work.     She  pawned  her  plate, 


CHRISTIAN    DEMAND      AND    PUBLIC    OPINION.        39 

her  jewels,  even  a  gold  thimble,  and  set  off  for  Paris, 
where  she  arrived  early  in  February,  and  sent  in  her 
report  to  the  Minister  of  War.  She  went  in  person 
from  deputy  to  deputy,  detailing  her  plans.  Poor 
Madame  Luce!  her  success  was  not  quite  so  speedy 
as  Alice  Holliday's,  whose  schools  had  doubtless 
stimulated  her  efforts.  Everywhere  she  had  to  com- 
bat the  scepticism,  the  indifference,  the  inertia,  of 
wordly  men.  There  was  no  Miss  Rogers,  with  a 
kind  heart  and  a  long  purse,  to  help  her  on  her  way. 
Nor  did  Madame  Luce  desire  that  there  should  be. 
She  knew  that  individual  efforts  of  such  a  kind  can 
never  last  long;  and  she  was  determined  to  make  the 
government  adopt  and  become  responsible  for  her 
work.  Then  it  would  outlive  her.  Then  it  might 
redeem  the  nation.  At  last,  daylight  began  to  dawn. 
The  government  gave  her  three  thousand  francs  for 
her  journey,  and  eleven  hundred  more  on  account  of 
some  claim  of  her  deceased  husband.  They  urged 
her  return  to  Algiers,  and  promised  still  farther  sup- 
port. So  perseveringly  had  she  wrought,  that,  early 
in  June,  she  was  able  to  re-open  her  school,  amid  the 
rejoicings  of  parents  and  children.  It  was  seven 
months  before  the  government  contrived  to  put  the 
school  on  a  better  foundation.  During  this  time,  her 
pupils  constantly  increased,  and  she  was  put  to  the 
greatest  straits  to  keep  it  together.  The  Cur^  of 
Algiers  gave  her  a  little  money  and  a  great  deal  of 
sympathy.  The  Count  Guyot,  high  in  office,  helped 
her  from   his   own  purse.     When  she   was  entirely 


40  THE    COLLEGE. 

destitute,  she  would  send  one  of  her  negresses  to 
him,  and  he  would  send  her  enough  for  the  day. 
On  one  occasion,  he  sent  a  small  bag  of  money,  left 
by  the  Due  de  Nemours  for  the  benefit  of  a  journal 
which  had  ceased  to  exist.  She  found  in  this  two 
hundred  francs,  which  she  received  as  a  direct  gift 
from  Heaven.  Thus  she  got  along  from  hand  to 
mouth.  She  engaged  an  Arab  mistress,  who  was 
remarkably  cultivated,  to  assist  her,  and  to  train  the 
children  in  her  own  faith.  Pledged  as  she  was  not  to 
instruct  them  in  Christianity,  she  had  the  sense  to  see, 
what  few  would  have  admitted,  that  such  instruction 
was  not  only  necessary,  but  desirable.  It  gave  them 
the  knowledge  of  one  God,  and  made  clear  distinctions 
between  right  and  wrong.  At  last,  in  January,  1847, 
the  school  was  formally  adopted,  and  received  its  first 
visit  of  inspection.  The  gentlemen  were  received  by 
thirty-two  pupils,  and  the  Arab  mistress  unveiled;  a 
great  triumph  of  common  sense,  if  we  consider  how 
short  a  time  the  school  had  been  opened.  Since  that 
time,  the  work  has  steadily  prospered.  In  1858  it 
numbered  one  hundred  and  twenty  pupils,  between 
the  ages  of  four  and  eighteen.  '  The  practical  wisdom 
of  Madame  Luce  led  her  to  establish  a  workshop, 
where  the  older  pupils  learned  the  value  of  their  labor, 
and  earned  a  good  deal  of  money.  They  had  always 
a  week's  work  in  advance,  when  the  wise,  slow 
government  put  an  end  to  it,  whether  to  save  the 
thirty-five  pounds  a  year,  which  the  salary  of  its 
superintendent  cost,  or  to  prevent  competition  with 


CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   AND    PUBLIC   OPINION.         41 

the  nunneries,  Madame  Luce  has  never  known.  She 
thought  it  the  best  part  of  her  plan, — far  better  than 
teaching  the  girls  to  turn  a  French  phrase  neatly 
for  the  satisfaction  of  inspectors.  The  govern- 
ments are  now  beginning  to  understand  her  value. 
They  have  established  a  second  school  in  Algiers, 
and  several  in  the  provinces.  The  results  are  not 
miraculous,  but  they  plant  new  germs  of  moral  power 
and  thought  in  every  family  circle  which  they  touch. 
Such  names  as  those  of  Alice  Holliday  and  Madame 
Luce  have  a  great  value.  These  women  and  their 
labors  are  permeated  by  the  Christian  idea  of  self- 
surrender.  The  preponderance  of  this  idea  in  these 
examples  distinguishes  them  above  women  of  the 
past,  whether  German  exaltadas,  brilliant  adventurers 
amid  the  perils  of  the  Fronde,  or  witty  loiterers  in  the 
salon  of  Madame  de  Sabl^. 

La  Rochefoucauld,  who  was  proud  of  Mademoi- 
selle and  her  princesses,  would  only  have  sneered  at 
Madame  Luce;  nor  would  Lady  Russell,  nor  Mrs. 
John  Adams,  have  followed  Alice  to  Egypt  cheerfully. 
Nor  do  these  two  women  belong  to  the  army  of  saints 
and  martyrs.  A  religious  devotee  has  in  her  a  mis- 
taken enthusiasm,  and  goes  away  from  the  world. 
These  women  are  doing  the  work  of  saints  and  mar- 
tyrs with  a  far  higher  appreciation  of  God's  provi- 
dence, of  the  uses  of  this  world,  and  with  all  the 
hindrances  that  fall  to  the  lot  of  simple  human  beings. 
It  is  not  our  intention  to  multiply  such  instances  here  : 
they  belong,  rather,  to  the  illustrations  of  individual 


42  THE    COLLEGE. 

power.  We  must  not  forget,  however,  the  existence, 
in  England,  of  that  circle  of  women,  of  whom  Mrs. 
Bodichon,  Mrs.  Hugo  Reid,  Mrs.  Browning,  Mrs. 
Fox,  Mrs.  Jameson,  and  Bessie  Raylior' Parkes,  are 
honorable  examples.  We  have  such  lives  as  those  of 
Mrs.  Gaskell  and  Miss  Evans;  the  scientific  reputa- 
tion not  alone  of -Mrs.  Somerville,  but  of  Mrs  Grif- 
fith, to  whose  masculine  power  of  research  English 
-marine  botany  may  be  said  to  owe  its  existence,  and 
who  still  survives,  at  an  advanced  age,  to  see  that 
knowledge  become  popular,  in  her  cheerful  and  hon- 
ored decline,  which  she  pursued,  for  many  a  year, 
unassisted  and  alone.  We  have  Mrs.  Janet  Taylor, 
one  of  the  best  and  most  popular  teachers  of  naviga- 
tion and  nautical  mathematics  in  all  England.  Her 
classes  have  been  celebrated  and  numerously  attended 
by  men  who  have  been  long  at  sea,  as  well  as  by 
youths  preparing  for  the  merchant  service;  and,  still 
farther,  we  have  in  cultivated  circles,  to  balance  the 
old  prejudice,  an  encouraging  liberality.  A  review, 
published  in  the  Westminster,  after  the  issue  of  Miss 
Martineau's  pamphlet  on  the  future  government  of 
India,  shows  conclusively  that  any  woman  who  will 
do  good  work  may  feel  sure  of  honest  appreciation. 
If  she  does  poor  work,  she  will  only  the  more  provoke 
the  enemy.  Nothing  could  have  been  more  ambitious 
than  Miss  Martineau's  theme;  but,  when  she  showed 
herself  well  qualified  to  handle  it,  no  one  had  any 
disposition  to  consider  the  choice  unwomanly.  Such 
criticisms  are  the  exponents  of  the  century's  expe- 


CHRISTIAN   DEMAND   AND    PUBLIC   OPINION.  43 

rience.  They  betray  the  unconscious  drift  of  the 
public  mind.  A  book  is  modest  by  the  side  of  a 
pamphlet.  The  former  may  wait  its  day:  the  latter 
aspires  to  immediate  influence,  if  it  does  any  thing, 
— must  mould"  the  hour.  It  was  once  the  chosen 
weapon  of  Milton  and  Bolingbroke,  later  of  Ward  and 
Brougham.  Is  it  nothing,  that  a  woman  of  advanced 
years,  writing  from  an  invalid's  chamber,  feels  herself 
competent  to  wield  it?  Was  it  nothing,  when,  by 
her  tracts  on  political  economy,  she  gave  an  impulse 
to  the  middle  classes  of  her  native  land,  for  which 
busy  political  men  could  not  find  time? 

Is  it  not  Godwin  who  says  that  ''human  nature  is 
better  read  in  romance  than  history"?  Every  actual 
life  falls  short  of  its  ideal;  but  a  poem  dares  demand 
some  approximation  to  its  standard  from  the  whole 
world.  In  this  way,  ''Aurora  Leigh,"  into  which  Mrs. 
Browning  confesses  she  has  thrown  her  whole  heart, 
is  a  wonderful  indication  of  human  thought  and  feel- 
ing. In  this  country,  there  are  many  significant  signs 
of  progress.  The  name  of  Maria  Mitchell-  in  astron- 
omy; of  the  women  engaged  in  the  Coast  Survey;  of 
the  professors  at  Antioch,  Vassar,  and  Oberlin, — are 
familiarly  known,  and  have  their  own  power.  Only 
lately,  a  Nashua  factory-girl  takes  the  highest  honors 
at  the  Oread  Institute;  and  its  principal  is  willing  to 
put  her  and  two  other  graduates  into  competition 
with  any  three  college  graduates  in  New  England  for 
examination  according  to  the  curriculum.  When  she 
finished  the  education  she  had  first  earned  the  money 


44  THE    COLLEGE. 

to  procure,  she  left  her  Worcester  home,  and,  with 
quiet  right-mindedness,  went  back  to  Nashua  to  labor 
for  an  indigeot  family.  As  she  tends  her  loom  on  the 
Jackson  Corporation,  she  will  have  leisure  to  investi- 
gate her  right  to  these  acquisitions. 

In  support  of  this  ''exception,"  the  superintendent 
of  the  New  York  City  Schools,  long  ago,  reported,  that 
its  female  schools,  whether  by  merit  of  teachers  or 
pupils  or  both,  are  of  a  much  higher  grade  than  the 
male  schools.  Eighteen  girls'  schools  are  superior,  in 
average  attainment,  to  the  very  best  boys'  school. 
He  goes  on  to  speak  of  the  rapidity  with  which 
women  acquire  knowledge,  in  terms  which  remind  us 
of  Margaret  Fuller,  when  she  remarks  of  Dr.  Chan- 
ning,  that  it  was  not  very  pleasant  to  read  to  him; 
''for, "  said  she,  "he  takes  in  subjects  more  deliberately 
than  is  conceivable  to  us  feminine  people,  with  our 
habits  of  ducking,  diving,  or  flying  for  truth."  In 
speaking  of  her  classes  at  Vassar  College,  Miss 
Mitchell  says  (1865):  ^'l  have  a  class  of  seventeen 
pupils,  between  the  ages  of  sixteen  and  twenty-two. 
They  come  to  me  for  fifty  minutes  every  day.  I 
allow  them  great  freedom  in  questioning,  and  I  am 
puzzled  by  them  daily.  They  show  more  mathemati- 
cal ability,  and  more  originality  of  thought,  than  I  had 
expected.  I  doubt  whether  young  men  would  show 
as  deep  an  interest.  Are  there  seventeen  students  in 
Harvard  College  who  take  mathematical  astronomy, 
do  you  think?" 

At  the  session  of  the  Michigan  Legislature,  held  in 


CHRISTIAN    DEMAND    AND    PUBLIC    OPINION.         45 

1857-8,  petitions  were  received  asking  that  women 
might  be  permitted  to  enjoy  all  the  advantages  of  the 
State  University.  The  committee  to  whom  the  sub- 
ject was  referred,  took  counsel  with  the  older  colleges 
at  the  East,  whose  whole  spirit  and  method  is  as 
much  opposed  to  such  an  idea  as  that  of,  Oxford. 
The  result  was,  that  they  reported  against  any  change 
for  the  present, — a  report  the  more  to  be  regretted,  as 
Ann  Arbor  has  a  broader  University  foundation  than 
any  institution  within  the  limits  of  the  United  States. 
The  University  has  lately  petitioned  for  a  larger  en- 
dowment, and  again  an  effort  has  been  made  to  secure 
its  advantages  for  women;  Theodore  Tilton  pleading 
before  the  committee  in  their  behalf,  in  February, 
1867.  We  know  of  twenty-seven  colleges  in  the 
United  States,  open  to  men  and  women,  of  which 
Oberlin  was  the  noble  pioneer.* 

The  highest  culture  has  been  claimed  for  women: 
it  has  been  shown  that,  for  two  centuries,  the  ideal  of 
such  a  culture  has  existed,  but  has  been  depressed  by 
an  erroneous  public  opinion.  There  has,  however, 
been  a  steady  growth  in  the  right  direction,  which  en- 
titles us  to  ask  for  a  ''revised  and  corrected"  public 
opinion.  The  influence  of  mental  culture  is  a  small 
thing  by  the  side  of  that  insinuating  atmospheric 
power  and  the  customs  of  society  which  it  controls. 
All  educated  men  and  women,  all  liberal  souls,  there- 
fore, should  do  their  utmost  to  invigorate  public  opin- 

*  See  Appendix. 


46  THE    COLLEGE. 

ion.  To  allow  no  weakness  to  escape  us,  to  challenge 
every  falsehood  as  it  passes,  to  brave  every  insinuation 
and  sneer,  is  what  duty  demands.  Can  you  not  bear 
to  be  called  '^  women's-rights  women  "?  To  whom  has 
the  name  ever  been  agreeable?  Society  gives  the  lie 
to  your  purest  instincts,  and  you  bear  it.  It  calls  the 
truths  you  accept  hard  names,  and  you  are  dumb.  It 
throws  stones,  and  you  shrink  behind  some  ragged 
social  fence  leaving  a  few  weak  women  to  stand  the 
assault  alone. 

What  influence  has  the  highest  literary  character 
of  America,  at  this  moment,  on  the  popular  idea  of 
women?  ''How  much  is  there  that  we  may  not  say 
aloud/'  wrote  Niebuhr  to  Savigny,  ''for  fear  of  being 
stoned  by  the  stupid  good  people!"  and  upon  this 
principle  the  thinkers  of  our  society  act;  not  a  word 
escaping  from  their  guarded  homes  to  cheer  the  more 
exposed  workers. 

Prescott  stabbed  Philip  II.  to  the  heart  without 
a  qualm.  Ticknor  could  give  a  life  to  the  romance 
of  old  Spain.  Froude  has  defended  Henry  VIII. 
Our  best  poets  sing  verses  that  enslave,  since  the  song 
of  beauty  echoes  always  among  tropical  delights. 
"Barbara  Frietchie"  alone  has  been  written  for  us. 
When  George  Curtis  blows  his  clarion,  a  courtly 
throng  come  at  the  call.  We  yield  with  the  rest  to 
the  charm  of  the  lips  on  which  Attic  bees  once  clus- 
tered. What  honor  do  we  pay  the  fair  proportions 
of  the  simple  truth? 

How  can  we  settle  questions  of  right  and  wrong  for 


CHRISTIAN    DEMAND    AND    PUBLIC    OPINION.  47 

remote  periods,  without  knowing  the  faces  of  either  in 
the  street  to-day?  How  shall  any  one  honor  Marga- 
ret of  Parma,  and  pity  poor  crazy  Joan  in  Spain,  and 
have  no  heart  for  the  heroism  of  Mary  Patton?  How 
unravel  with  patient  study  the  tracasseries  of  Eliza- 
beth Tudor  and  Mary  Stuart,  yet  ignore  the  compli- 
cations of  the  life  he  himself  lives? 

When  Mary  Patton  had  carried  her  ship  round 
Cape  Horn, — standing  in  a  parlor  where  the  air  was 
close,  though  the  breezes  that  entered  at  its  open 
casement  swept  the  Common  as  they  came,  a  woman 
told,  with  newly  kindled  enthusiasm,  the  story  of  that 
wonderful  voyage.  She  gave  her,  in  warm  words, 
her  wifely  and  womanly  due.  "She  saved  the  ship, 
God  bless  her!"  she  said  as  she  concluded;  and  an- 
other voice,  that  once  was  sweet,  responded,  ''More 
shame  to  her!" 

'*  'More  shame  to  her!'  "  repeated  the  first  speaker, 
as  if  she  had  been  struck  a  sudden  blow;  and  turning 
quickly  towards  the  girl,  beautiful,  well  educated, 
carefully  reared,  who,  in  the  fulness  of  her  twenty 
summers,  found  time  for  church-going,  for  clothing 
the  poor,  for  elegant  study,  for  every  thing  but  sym- 
pathy,— "More  shame!"  she  repeated:  "What!  for 
saving  life  and  property?  "^"  Better  that  they  should 
all  have  gone  to  the  bottom,"  returned  her  friend, 
"than  that  one  woman  should  step  out  of  her 
sphere!"  Ah!  the  Infinite  Father  knows  how  to 
educate  the  public  opinion  that  we  need.  Now  and 
then   he  lifts   a  woman,   as   he   did   Mary  Patton, 


48  THE    COLLEGE. 

against  her  will  out  of  her  ordinary  routine;  and. 
while  all  the  world  gaze  at  her  with  tender  sympathy, 
they  half  accept  the  coming  future. 

Does  it  sadden  you,  that  we  should  repeat  such 
words?  They  did  not  shock  the  ears  on  which  they 
fell;  they  met  no  farther  rebuke  than  one  astonished 
question.  Yet  what  did  they  represent?  Not  the 
public  opinion  of  Mary  Patton.  The  New  York  un- 
derwriters, when  they  voted  her  a  thousand  dollars, 
were  a  fit  gauge  of  that.  It  was  the  public  opinion 
of  the  ''right  of  vocation"  that  the  young  girl  uncon- 
sciously betrayed.  Harsh  words  die  on  our  lips,  as 
we  think,  ''This  girl's  life  is  aimless.  She  would 
gladly  do  some  noble  work,  but  society  does  not  help 
her.  She  lacks  courage  to  stand  alone,  and  envies 
the  very  woman  she  decries." 

"Public  opinion  is  of  slow  growth,"  you  retort: 
"do  not  charge  its  corruptions  on  the  people  of  to- 
day." 

The  people  of  to-day  are  responsible  for  any  cor- 
ruptions which  they  do  not  reject. 

We  have  seen  that  the  standard  of  womanly 
education  does  not  lead  where  it  should,  because 
controlled  by  a  public  opinion  which  demands  too 
little.  It  becomes  us  here  to  investigate  the  origin 
of  that  public  opinion,  and  to  ask  the  meaning  of 
the  lives  which  have  been  lived  in  its  despite. 


HOW    PUBLIC    OPINION    IS    MADE.  49 


II. 

HOW  PUBLIC  OPINION  IS  MADE. 

"A  governed  thought,  thinking  no  thought  but  good, 
Makes  crowded  houses,  holy  soHtude." 

Sanscrit  Book  of  Good  Counsels. 

^X^HE  existing  public  opinion  with  regard  to  woman 
^  has  been  formed  by  the  influence  of  heathen  ages 
and  institutions,  kept  up  by  a  mistaken  study  of  the 
classics, — a  study  so  pursued,  that  Athens  and  Rome, 
Aristophanes  and  Juvenal,  are  more  responsible  for 
the  popular  views  of  woman,  and  for  the  popular  mis- 
takes in  regard  to  man's  position  toward  her,  than 
any  thing  that  has  been  written  later. 

This  influence  pervades  all  history;  and  so  the 
study  of  history  becomes,  in  its  turn,  the  source  of 
still  greater  and  more  specious  error,  except  to  a  few 
rare  and  original  minds,  whose  eccentricities  have 
been  pardoned  to  their  genius,  but  who  have  never 
influenced  the  world  to  the  extent  that  they  have 
been  influenced  by  it. 

The  adages  or  proverbs  of  all  nations  are  the  out- 
growths of  their  first  attempts  at  civilization.  They 
began  at  a  time  which  knew  neither  letter-paper  nor 
the  printing-press;  and  they  perpetuate  the  rudest 
ideas,  such  as  are  every  way  degrading  to  womanly 
virtue.     The  influence  of  general  literature  is  impelled 


50  THE    COLLEGE. 

by  the  mingled  current.  For  many  centuries,  it  was 
the  outgrowth  of  male  minds  only,  of  such  as  had 
been  drilled  f.or  seven  years  at  least  into  all  the  hea- 
thenisms of  which  we  speak. 

Women,  when  they  first  began  to  work,  followed 
the  masculine  idea,  shared  the  masculine  culture.  As 
a  portion  of  general  literature,  the  novel,  as  the  most 
popular,  exerts  the  widest  sway.  No  educational  in- 
fluence in  this  country  compares  with  it;  even  that  of 
the  pulpit  looks  trivial  beside  it.  There  are  thousands 
whom  that  influence  never  reaches;  hardly  one  who 
cannot  beg  or  buy  a  newspaper,  with  its  story  by  some 
^'SylvanusCobb." 

From  the  first  splash  of  the  Atlantic  on  a  Mas- 
sachusetts beach  to  the  farthest  canon  which  the 
weary  footsteps  of  the  Mormon  women  at  this  mo- 
ment press;  from  the  shell-bound  coast  of  Florida, 
hung  with  garlands  of  orange  and  lime,  to  the  cold, 
green  waters  of  Lake  Superior,  in  their  fretted  chalice 
of  copper  and  gold, — the  novel  holds  its  way.  On  the 
railroad,  at  the  depot,  in  the  Irish  hut,  in  the  Indian 
lodge,  on  the  steamer  and  the  canal-boat,  in  the  Fifth 
avenue  palace,  and  the  Five-points  den  of  infamy,  its 
shabby  livery  betrays  the  work  that  it  is  doing. 

Until  very  lately,  it  has  kept  faith  with  history  and 
the  classics;  but  it  is  passing  more  and  more  into  the 
hands  of  women, — of  late  into  the  hands  of  noble 
and  independent  women;  and  there  are  signs  which 
indicate  that  it  may  soon  become  a  potent  influence 
of  redemption.     It  has  thus  far  done  infinite  harm,  by 


HOW    PUBLIC    OPINION    IS   MADE.  51 

drawing  false  distinctions  between  the  masculine  and 
feminine  elements  of  human  nature,  and  perpetuating, 
through  the  influence  of  genius  often  intensifying,  the 
educational  power  of  a  false  theory  of  love. 

Social  customs  follow  in  the  train  of  literature;  and 
sometimes  in  keeping  with  popular  errors,  but  oftener 
in  stern  opposition  to  them,  are  the  lives  and  labors 
of  remarkable  individuals  of  both  sexes, — lives  that 
show,  if  they  show  nothing  else",  how  much  the  res- 
olute endeavor  of  one  noble  heart  may  do  towards 
making  real  and  popular  its  own  convictions. 

The  influence  of  newspapers  sustains,  of  course, 
the  general  current  derived  from  all  these  sources. 

Public  opinion,  then,  flows  out  of  these  streams, — 
out  of  classical  literature,  history,  general  reading, 
and  the  proverbial  wisdom  of  all  lands;  out  of  social 
conventions,  and  customs  and  newspapers.  These 
streams  set  one  way.  Only  individual  influences  re- 
main, to  stem  their  united  force. 

We  must  treat  of  them  more  at  length,  and  first  of 
the  classics.  Until  very  lately,  there  were  no  proper 
helps  to  the  study  of  Egyptian,  Greek,  or  Roman 
mythology.  It  was  studied  by  the  letter,  and  made 
to  have  more  or  less  meaning,  according  to  the  teacher 
who  interpreted  it.  Lempriere  had  no  room  for  moral 
deductions  or  symbolic  indications;  his  columns  read 
like  a  criminal  report  in  the  /'New  York  Herald.'' 
The  Egyptian  mythology  was,  doubtless,  an  older  off- 
shoot from  the  same  stem.  Many  of  its  ceremonies, 
its  symbols,  and  its  idols,  must  be  confused  by  the  un- 


62  THE    COLLEGE. 

instructed  mind  with  realities  of  the  very  lowest,  per- 
haps we  should  not  be  far  wrong  if  we  said,  of  the 
most  revolting  stamp.  The  Greek  classics,  so  far  as 
I  know  them,  present  a  singular  mixture  of  influ- 
ences; but,  where  woman  is  concerned,  the  lowest 
certainly  preponderate.  We  should  be  sorry  to  lose 
Homer  and  ^schylus,  Herodotus,  Thucydides,  and 
Xenophon,  from  our  library;  but  of  how  many  poets 
and  dramatists,  from  the  few  fragments  of  Pindar  and 
Anacreon  down  through  the  tragic  poets, — down, 
very  far  down,  indeed,  to  Aristophanes, — can  we  say 
as  much? 

There  need  be  no  doubt  about  Aristophanes.  The 
world  would  be  purer,  and  all  women  grateful,  if 
every  copy  of  his  works,  and  every  coarse  inference 
from  them,  could  be  swept  out  of  existence  to-morrow. 
When  we  find  a  noble  picture  in  Xenophon,  it  had  a 
noble  original^,  like  Panthea  in  Persia,  as  old  perhaps 
as  that  fine  saying  in  the  Heetopades  which  all  the 
younger  Veds  disown.  When  we  find  an '  ignoble 
thought,  it  seems  to  have  been  born  out  of  his  Greek 
experience.  Transported  by  a  fair  ideal,  Plato  asks, 
in  his  ''Republic,"  ''Should  not  this  sex,  which  we  con- 
demn to  obscure  duties,  be  destined  to  functions  the 
most  noble  and  elevated?"  But  it  was  only  to  take 
back  the  words  in  his  "Timaeus,"  and  in  the  midst  of 
a  society  that  refused  to  let  the  wife  sit  at  table  with  the 
husband,  and  whose  young  wives  were  not  "tame" 
enough  to  speak  to  their  husbands,  if  we  may  believe 
the  words  of  Xenophon,  until  after  months  of  mar- 


HOW    PUBLIC    OPINION    IS   MADE.  53 

riage.  When  Ischomachus,  the  model  of  an  Athenian 
husband,  and  the  friend  of  Socrates,  asked  his  wife  if 
she  knew  whether  he  had  married  her  for  love,  "I 
know  nothing,"  she  replied,  "but  to  be  faithful  to  you, 
and  to  learn  what  you  teach."  He  responded  by  an 
exhortation  on  "staying  at  home,"  which  has  come 
down  to  posterity,  and  left  her,  with  a  kiss,  for  the 
saloon  of  Aspasia!  Pindar  and  Anacreon,  even  when 
they  find  no  better  representatives  than  Dr.  Wolcott 
and  Tom  Moore,  still  continue  to  crown  the  wine-cup, 
and  impart  a  certain  grace  to  immanly  orgies.  A 
late  French  writer  goes  so  far  as  to  call  Euripides 
"a  woman-hater,  who  could  not  pardon  Zeus  for 
having  made  woman  an  indispensable  agent  in  the 
preservation  of  the  species."  In  his  portraits  of 
Iphigenia  and  Macaria,  Euripides  follows  his  concep- 
tion of  heroic,  not  human  nature.  They  are  demi- 
goddesses;  yet  how  are  their  white  robes  stained! 
Iphigenia  says: — 

"More  than  a  thousand  women  is  one  man 
Worthy  to  see  the  light  of  day;" 

a  sentiment  which  has  prevailed  ever  since. 

"Silence  and  a  chaste  reserve 
Is  woman's  genuine  praise,  and  to  remain 
Quiet  within  the  house," 

proceeds  Macaria,  and  still  farther: — 

"Of  prosperous  future  could  I  form 
One  cheerful  hope? 

A  poor  forsaken  virgin  who  would  deign 
To  take  in  marriage?    Who  would  wish  for  sons 
From  one  so  wretched?    Better,  then,  to  die 
Than  bear  such  undeserved  miseries!" 


54  THE    COLLEGE. 

Here  is  the  popular  idea  which  curses  society  to-day, 
— no  vocation  possible  to  woman,  if  she  may  not  be  a 
wife,  and  bear  children:  and  these  are  favorable  speci- 
mens; they  show  the  practical  tendencies  of  the  very 
best  of  Euripides.  The  heroic  portions  are  like  Miri- 
am's song,  and  have  nothing  to  do  with  us  and  our 
experiences. 

In  speaking  of  Aristophanes,  I  do  not  speak  igno- 
rantly.  I  know  how  much  students  consider  them- 
selves indebted  to  him  for  details  of  manners  and 
customs,  for  political  and  social  hints,  for  a  sort  of 
Dutch  school  of  pen-painting. 

But  if  a  nation's  life  be  so  very  vile,  if  crimes  that 
we  cannot  name  and  do  not  understand  be  among 
its  amusements,  why  permit  the  record  to  taint  the 
mind  and  inflame  the  imagination  of  youth?  Why 
put  it  with  our  own  hands  into  the  desks  of  those 
in  no  way  prepared  to  use  it?  Would  you  have  wit 
and  humor?  Sit  down  with  Douglas  Jerrold,  or  to 
the  genial  table  spread  by  our  Boston  Autocrat,  and 
you  will  have  no  relish  left  for  the  coarse  fare  of  the 
Athenian.  One  of  the  most  vulgar  assaults  ever 
made  upon  the  movement  to  elevate  woman  in  this 
country  was  made  in  a  respectable  quarterly  by  a 
Greek  scholar.  It  was  sustained  by  quotations  from 
Aristophanes,  and  concluded  by  copious  translations 
from  one  of  his  liveliest  plays,  offered  as  a  specimen 
of  the  ''riot  and  misrule"  that  we  ambitious  women 
were  ready  to  inaugurate.  Coarser  words  still  our 
Greek  scholar  might  have  taken  from  the  same  source 


HOW    PUBLIC    OPINION   Ig   MADE.  55 

to  illustrate  his  theory.  He  knew  very  well  that  the 
nineteenth  century  would  bear  hints,  insinuations, 
sneers,  any  thing  but  plain  speaking.  We  have 
limits:  he  observed  them,  and  forbore.  Women  some- 
times talk  of  Aristophanes  as  if  they  had  read  his 
plays  with  pleasure;  a  thing  for  which  we  can  only 
account  by  supposing  that  they  do  not  take  the  whole 
significance  of  what  they  read, — and  this  is  often  the 
case  with  men.  But  a  college  furnishes  helps.  The 
mysteries  of  the  well-thumbed  English  key  are  trans- 
lated afresh  into  what  we  may  call  ''college  slang,'' 
illustrated  oftentimes  by  clever  if  vulgar  caricatures, 
where  a  few  significant  lines  tell  in  a  moment  what 
a  pure  mind  would  have  pondered  yeafs  without 
perceiving;  and  if,  perchance,  some  modest  woman 
finds  her  friend  or  lover  at  this  work,  society  says 
only:  ''You  should  not  have  touched  the  young 
man's  book.  What  harm  for  him  to  amuse  himself? 
— only  women  should  never  find  it  out!  Keep  them 
pure,  no  matter  what  becomes  of  men.  What  busi- 
ness had  you  to  know  the  meaning  of  those  pencil 
marks?" 

Even  St.  John  does  not  hesitate  to  condemn  Aris- 
tophanes.* "With  an  art  in  which  Shakespeare  was 
no  mean  proficient,"  he  begins,  "he  opens  up  a  more 
culpable  source  of  interest  in  the  frequent  satire  of 
vices  condemned  as  commonly  as  they  are  practised. 
He  unveils  the  mysteries  of  iniquity  with  a  fearless 

*  Manners  and  Customs  of  Greece,  vol.  i,  p.  337. 


56  THE    COLLEGE. 

and  by  no  means  an  unreluctant  hand.  He  ventures 
fearlessly  on  themes  which  few  before  or  since  have 
touched,  despising  the  stern  condemnation  of  pos- 
terity. He  evidently  shared  in  the  worst  corruptions 
of  his  age,  and,  like  many  other  satirists,  availed  him- 
self joyfully  of  the  mask  of  satire  to  entertain  his 
own  imagination  with  his  own  descriptions.  No  one, 
with  the  least  clear-sightedness  or  candor,  can  fail 
to  perceive  the  depraved  moral  character  of  Aristo- 
phanes. Only  less  filthy  than  Rabelais,  his  fancy 
runs  riot  among  the  moral  jakes  and  common  sewers 
of  the  world,  over  which,  by  consummate  art  and  the 
matchless  magic  of  his  style,  he  contrives  unhappily 
to  breathe  a  fragrance  which  should  never  be  found 
save  where  virtue  is." 

When  I  first  took  up  my  pen,  knowing  well  that  I 
should  speak  of  Margaret  Fuller's  beloved  Greeks  in 
a  tone  somewhat  different  from  hers,  I  did  not  know 
that  I  should  have  the  sympathy  of  a  single  eminent 
scholar. 

It  was  with  no  common  pleasure,  therefore,  that, 
opening  her  Life  at  random,  one  day,  I  chanced  upon 
these  words  from  her  own  pen.  She  is  speaking  of 
a  class  of  private  pupils: — 

''I  have  always  thought  all  that  was  said  about 
the  anti-religious  tendency  of  a  classical  education 
to  be  'auld  wives'  tales.'  But  the  puzzles  (of  my 
pupils)  about  Virgil's  notions  of  heaven  and  virtue, 
and  his  gracefully  described  gods  and  goddesses, 
have  led  me  to  alter  my  opinions;  and  I  suspect. 


HOW    PUBLIC    OPINION    IS    MADE.  57 

from  reminiscences  of  my  own  mental  history,  that, 
if  ail  teachers  do  not  think  the  same,  it  is  from 
the  want  of  an  intimate  knowledge  of  their  pupils' 
minds.  I  really  find  it  difficult  to  keep  their  morale 
steady,  and  am  inclined  to  think  many  of  my  own 
sceptical  sufferings  are  traceable  to  this  source.  I 
well  remember  what  reflections  arose  in  my  childish 
mind  from  a  comparison  of  the  Hebrew  history, 
where  every  moral  obliquity  is  shown  out  with  such 
naivete,  and  the  Greek  history,  full  of  sparkling  deeds 
and  brilliant  sayings,  and  their  gods  and  goddesses, 
the  types  of  beauty  and  power,  with  the  dazzling  veil 
of  flowery  language  and  poetical  imagery  cast  over 
their  vices  and  failings."* 

We  may  be  permitted  also  to  quote,  from  the  com- 
petent pen  of  Buckle,  the  following  words : — 

'*We  have  only  to  open  the  Greek  literature,"  he 
says,  in  his  lecture  on  ''The  Condition  of  Women," 
"to  see  with  what  airs  of  superiority,  with  what  se- 
rene and  lofty  contempt,  with  what  mocking  and 
biting  scorn,  women  were  treated  by  that  lively  and 
ingenious  people,  who  looked  upon  them  merely  as 
toys.'' 

Alas!  we  need  no  prophet  to  show  that  what  pol- 
lutes the  mind  of  youth  and  lover,  polluting  the 
ideal  of  society,  must  soon  pollute  the  mind  of 
maiden  and  mistress.  Is  that  a  Christian  country 
which  permits  this  style  of  thinking?  and  how  many 

*  Memoirs  of  S.  M.  Fuller,  vol.  i.  p.  337. 


58  THE    COLLEGE. 

men  of  the  world  accept  the  stainless  virginity  of 
Christ  as  the  world's  pattern  of  highest  manliness? 

Passing  from  Greece  to  Rome,  you  will  see  that 
even  as  we  owe  to  Roman  law,  before  the  time  of 
Justinian,  almost  all  that  is  obnoxious  in  the  English, 
retaining  still  the  strange  old  Latin  terms  which  were 
applied  to  our  relations  in  a  very  barbarous  state  of 
society;  so  we  owe  to  the  time  of  Augustus,  to  the 
influence  of  satirists  like  Horace  and  Juvenal,  almost 
all  the  wide-spread  heresies  in  regard  to  human  na- 
ture: if  we  had  but  time  to  look  at  it,  we  might  say 
Galvanism  among  the  rest. 

The  views  of  women  are  still  lower.  Gsesar  and 
Gicero  may  be  abstract  nullities  to  our  young  student  ; 
but  what  can  he  learn  from  Ovid?  It  is  not  delicate 
to  name  the  '^Art  of  Love."  In  simple,  honest  truth, 
it  is  the  same  to  read  the  Metamorphoses.  You 
cannot  ventilate  a  gross  man's  atmosphere;  all  the 
Betsy  Trotwoods  must  toss  their  cushions  on  the  lawn 
when  he  leaves  the  room.  It  is  the  old  difference  be- 
tween ''Don  Juan"  and  "Ghilde  Harold,"  only  less.  In 
the  first,  the  unvarnished  play  of  passion  may  disgust 
you  until  it  instructs;  in  the  second,  you  have  the 
despairing  misanthropy,  the  false  philosophy,  the 
devil  in  Gabriel's  own  garment,  which  is  always 
fascinating  to  the  young,  morbid  with  the  stimulus 
of  growth,  and  which  you  might  mistake  for  piety  if 
you  did  not  know  it  was  born  of  the  lassitude  left  by 
excess. 

Latin  mythology  was  but  the  corruption  of  the 


HOW   PUBLIC    OPINION   IS   MADE.  59 

older  types.  What  was  beauty  once  became  here 
undisguised  coarseness  or  worse.  The  gods  who 
once  endured  sin  now  patronized  and  made  money 
by  it.  These  things  are  not  without  their  influence. 
Above  all,  low  images,  witty  slang,  and  sharp  satire, 
have  force  beyond  their  own,  when  slowly  studied  out 
by  the  help  of  the  lexicon.  The  women  to  whom  I 
speak  know  this  very  well.  They  know  that  the  Mo- 
li^re,  the  Dante,  the  Schiller,  studied  at  school,  are 
never  forgotten.  They  smile  to  hear  men  call  them 
hard  to  read:  for  them  they  glow  with  clear  and  sig- 
nificant meaning.  Striking  passages  are  indelibly 
impressed  by  associations  of  time  or  place  or  page, 
which  can  never  be  forgotten.  /  would  not  put  an 
end  to  classical  study;  I  would  only  direct  attention, 
through  such  remarks ,  to  the  dangers  attendant  on  the 
present  manner  of  study.  Classical  teachers  should  not 
he  chosen  for  their  learning  alone.  No  Lord  Chester- 
field should  teach  manners,  hut  some  one  whose  daily 
"good  morning''  is  precious.  So  no  coarse,  low-minded 
man  should  interpret  Greek  or  Roman,  hut  some  nohle 
soul,  not  indifferent  to  social  progress,  capable  of  dis- 
criminating, and  of  letting  in  a  little  Christian  light 
upon  those  pagan  times.  Where  men  and  women  are 
taught  together,  this  thing  settles  itself;  and  this  is  a 
very  strong  argument  for  institutions  like  Antioch 
and  Oberlin. 

Then  might  the  period  passed  at  the  Latin  school 
and  the  college  become  of  the  greatest  moral  and  in- 
tellectual use.     Then  would  no  graduating  students 


60  THE    COLLEGE. 

run  the  risk  of  hearing  from  their  favorite  doctor  of 
divinity,  instead  of  sound  scriptural  exhortation,  some 
doctrine  whisked  out  of  Epicurus,  by  a  clever  but 
unconscious  leger-de-plume. 

Do  not  tell  us,  O  excellent  man!  that  you  have 
gone  through  all  this  training,  and  come  out  with 
your  soul  unstained.  We  look  at  you,  and  see  a 
temperament  cold  as  ice,  passions  and  imagination 
that  were  never  at  a  blood-heat  since  you  were  born, 
that  never  translated  the  cold  paper  image  into  the 
warm  deed  of  your  conscious  mental  life;  and  you 
shall  not  answer  for  us,  nor  for  our  children. 

In  leaving  this  branch  of  our  subject  to  be  more 
fitly  pursued  by  others,  we  ought  to  add  that  men- 
tal purity  is  not  enough  insisted  upon  for  either 
sex.  It  is  only  by  the  greatest  faithfulness  from  the 
beginning  in  this  respect  that  we  become  capable  of 
''touching  pitch"  at  a  mature  age,  in  a  way  to  benefit 
either  ourselves  or  the  community.  How  desirable  it 
is  to  keep  the  young  eye  steadily  gazing  at  the  light 
till  it  feels  all  that  is  lost  in  darkness,  to  keep  the 
atmosphere  serene  and  holy  till  the  necessary  conflicts 
of  life  begin!  For  such  a  dayspring  to  existence  no 
price  could  be  too  high;  and,  if  desirable  to  all,  it  is 
essential  to  those  who  inherit  degrading  tendencies. 

We  must  speak  now  of  history.  For  the  most 
part,  it  has  been  written  by  men  devoid  of  intentional 
injustice  to  the  sex;  but,  when  a  man  sits  in  a  certain 
light,  he  is  penetrated  by  its  color,  as  the  false  shades 
in  our  omnibuses  strike  the  fairest  bloom  black  and 


HOW   PUBLIC    OPINION    IS   MADE.  61 

blue.  If  the  positive  knowledge  and  Christian  candor 
of  the  nineteenth  century  cannot  compel  Macaulay  to 
confess  that  he  has  libelled  the  name  of  William 
Penn,  what  may  be  expected  of  the  mistakes  occa- 
sioned by  the  ignorance,  the  inadvertence,  or  the  false 
theories  of  the  past?  Clearly  that  they  also  will  re- 
main uncorrected. 

If  men  start  with  the  idea  that  woman  is  an  inferior 
being,  incapable  of  wide  interests,  and  created  for 
their  pleasure  alone;  if  they  enact  laws  and  establish 
customs  to  sustain  these  views;  if,  for  the  most  part, 
they  shut  her  into  hareems,  consider  her  so  dangerous 
that  she  may  not  walk  the  streets  without  a  veil, — 
they  will  write  history  in  accordance  with  such  views, 
and,  whatever  may  be  the  facts,  they  will  be  interpret- 
ed to  suit  them.  They  will  dwell  upon  the  lives  which 
their  theories  explain :  they  will  touch  lightly  or  ignore 
those  that  puzzle  them.  We  shall  hear  a  great  deal 
of  Cleopatra  and  Messalina,  of  the  mother  of  Nero 
and  of  Lucrezia  Borgia,  of  Catharine  de  Medicis  and 
Marie  Stuart,  of  the  beautiful  Gabrielle  and  Ninon 
de  L'Enclos.  They  will  tell  us  of  bloody  Mary  and, 
that  royal  coquette,  Elizabeth;  and  possibly  of  some 
saints  and  martyrs,  not  too  grand  in  stature  to  wear 
the  strait-jacket  of  their  theories. 

If  they  think  that  purity  is  required  of  woman 
alone,  and  all  license  permitted  to  man,  they  will  value 
female  chastity  for  the  service  it  does  poetry  and  the 
state,  but  never  maidenhood  devoted  to  noble  uses 
and  conscious  of  an  immortal  destiny. 


62  THE    COLLEGE. 

Hypatia  of  Alexandria,  noble  and  queenly,  so 
queenly  that  those  who  did  not  understand,  dared  not 
libel  her, — Hypatia,  a  woman  of  intellect  so  keen  and 
grasping,  that  she  would  have  been  eminent  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  may  be  met  in  the  circles  of 
some  future  sphere,  erect  and  calm,  by  the  side  of  our 
own  Margaret  Fuller, — she,  who  died  a  stainless  vir- 
gin, torn  in  pieces  by  dogs,  because  she  tried  to  shelter 
some  wretched  Jews  from  Christian  wrath,  and  could 
even  hold  her  Neo-Platonism  a  holier  thing  than  that 
disgraced  Christianity, — what  do  we  know  of  her? 
Only  the  little  which  the  letters  of  Synesius  preserve, 
only  the  testimony  borne  by  a  few  Christians,  fathers 
of  the  Church  noWj  but  outlawed  then  by  the  popular 
grossness!  Yet,  a  pure  and  fragrant  waif  from  the 
dark  ocean  of  that  past,  her  name  was  permitted  to 
float  down  to  us,  till  Kingsley  caught  it,  and,  with 
the  unscrupulousness  of  the  advocate,  stained  it  to 
serve  his  purpose.* 

It  would  have  been  no  matter,  had  not  genius  set 
its  seal  on  the  work,  and  so  made  it  doubtful  whether 
history  has  any  Hypatia  left.  We  must  not  fail  to 
utter  constant  protest  against  such  unfairness;  and  to 
assert  again  and  again,  that  not  a  single  weakness  or 
folly  attributed  to  Hypatia  by  the  noveUst — neither 
the  worship  of  Venus  Anadyomene  nor  the  prospective 
marriage  with  the  Roman  governor,  neither  the  super- 
stitious fears,  the  ominous  self-conceit,  nor  the  half 


*  I  have  sustained  this  assertion  in  two  articles  on  Hypatia,  published  in 
"Historical  Sketches,"  1855. 


HOW    PUBLIC    OPINION    IS    MADE.  63 

conscious  personal  ambition^ — is  in  the  least  sus- 
tained by  the  facts  of  history.  She  was  pure  and 
stainless:  let  us  see  to  it  that  such  memories  are 
rescued. 

And  there  is  still  another  name,  deeply  wronged  by 
the  prejudice  and  party  spirit  of  the  past,  which  it  is 
quite  possible  to  redeem:  I  mean  that  of  Aspasia. 
For  many  centuries,  the  very  sound  of  it  suggested 
an  image  of  all  womanly  grace  and  genius,  devoid 
of  womanly  virtue;  the  insight  of  a  seer,  the  elo- 
quence of  an  orator,  but  the  voluptuousness  of  a 
courtesan.  Very  lately,  the  manly  justice  of  Thirl- 
wall  and  Grote,  and  the  exquisite  taste  and  imagina- 
tion of  Walter  Savage  Landor,  have  striven  to  repair 
the  wrong.  Her  reputation  fell  a  victim  to  the  gross 
puns  of  Aristophanes,  himself  the  hired  mouth-piece 
of  a  political  party  that  hated  her,  and  whose  misrep- 
resentations were  so  contemptible  in  the  eyes  of  Peri- 
cles, that  he  would  not  interfere  to  prevent  them. 

Would  you  have  the  history  of  that  immortal  mar- 
riage written  truly? 

Imagine  the  Greek  ruler  married,  for  some  years, 
to  a  woman  of  the  noblest  Athenian  blood,  already 
the  mother  of  two  children,  but  one  who,  if  irre- 
proachable in  conduct,  was  utterly  incapable  of  tak- 
ing in  the  scope  of  his  plans,  or  sharing  his  lofty, 
adventurous  thought.  After  years  of  weariness  passed 
in  her  society,  with  no  rest  for  his  heart  and  no  inspi- 
ration for  his  genius,  there  came  to  Athens  a  woman 
and   a   foreigner,    in   whom   he   found    his   peer, — a 


64  THE    COLLEGE. 

woman  who  gathered  round  her  in  a  moment  all  that 
there  was  of  free  and  noble  in  that  world  of  poetry, 
statesmanship,  and  art.  She  was  from  the  islands  of 
the  Archipelago,  and,  like  the  women  of  her  country, 
walked  the  streets  with  her  face  unveiled. 

Hardly  had  she  come,  before  Socrates  and  Plato,  and 
Anaxagoras  the  pure  old  man,  became  her  frequent 
guests,  and  honored  her  with  the  name  of  friend.  In 
such  a  society,  Pericles  saw  that  his  own  soul  would 
grow;  so  sustained,  he  should  be  more  for  Athens 
and  himself.  He  was  no  Christian  to  deny  himself 
for  the  sake  of  that  unhappy  wife  and  children, — 
a  wife  whose  discontent  had  already  infected  the 
state.  The  gods  he  knew — Zeus  and  Eros — smiled 
on  the  step  he  took.  What  if  the  laws  of  Athens 
forbade  a  legal  marriage  with  a  foreigner?  Pericles 
was  Athens;  and  what  he  respected,  all  men  must 
honor.  Aspasia  had,  so  far  as  we  know,  a  free  maiden 
heart;  and  Pericles  shows  us  in  what  light  he  regarded 
her,  by  divorcing  his  wife  to  consolidate  their  union, 
and  subsequently  forcing  the  courts  to  legitimate  her 
child.  Had  he  omitted  these  proofs  of  his  own  sin- 
cerity and  her  honor,  not  a  voice  would  have  been 
raised  against  either.  What  need  to  take  these  steps, 
if  she  were  the  woman  Aristophanes  would  have  us 
see? 

This  divorce  created  or  strengthened  the  political 
opposition  to  Pericles.  This  opposition  was  headed 
by  his  two  sons  and  their  forsaken  mother,  joined 
by  the  pure  Athenian  blood  to  which  theirs  was  akin. 


HOW   PUBLIC    OPINION   IS   MADE.  65 

and  gained  all  its  strength  and  popularity  from  the 
wit  and  falsehood  of  Aristophanes  and  the  players. 

Follow  the  story  as  it  goes,  and  see  Aspasia,  at 
last,  summoned  before  the  Areopagus.  What  are  the 
charges  against  her?  The  very  same  that  were  pre- 
ferred against  her  friends,  Socrates  and  Anaxagoras. 
''She  walks  the  streets  unveiled,  she  sits  at  the  table 
with  men,  she  does  not  believe  in  the  Greek  gods,  she 
talks  about  one  sole  Creator,  she  has  original  ideas 
about  the  motions  of  the  sun  and  moon;  therefore 
her  society  corrupts  youth."  Not  a  word  about  vice 
of  any  sort.  Is  it  for  abandoned  women  that  the 
best  men  of  any  age  are  willing  to  entreat  before  a 
senate?  The  tears  which  Pericles  shed  then  for 
Aspasia  glitter  like  gems  on  the  historic  page. 

When  the  plague  came,  his  first  thought  was  for 
her  safety;  and,  after  his  death,  her  name  shares  the 
retirement  of  her  widowed  life.  There  was  a  rumor 
that  she  afterward  married  a  rich  grazier,  whom  she 
raised  to  eminence  in  the  state.  Not  unlikely  that 
such  a  rumor  might  grow  in  the  minds  of  those  who 
had  not  forgotten  the  men  she  made,  when  they 
saw  the  success  of  Lysicles;  but  other  authors  assert 
that  his  wife  was  the  Aspasia  who  was  also  known  as 
a  midwife  in  Athens. 

It  is  a  noble  picture,  it  seems  to  me;  and  when  we 
consider  the  prejudice  of  a  Christian  age  and  country, 
the  mob  that  a  Bloomer  skirt  will  attract  in  our  own 
cities,  we  need  not  wonder  that  slander  followed  an 
unveiled  face  in  Athens. 


66  THE    COLLEGE. 

What  do  we  know  of  the  women  of  the  age  of 
Augustus? — of  the  galaxy  that  spanned  the  sky  of 
Louis  XIV.? 

Do  you  remember,  as  you  read  of  those  crowds  of 
worthless  women,  what  sort  of  public  opinion  edu- 
cated them, — what  sort  of  public  opinion  such  histo- 
ries tend  to  form?  Do  you  ever  ask  any  questions 
concerning  the  men  of  the  same  eras, — how  they 
employed  their  time,  and  what  part  they  took  in  those 
games  of  wanton  folly?  It  is  time  that  some  one 
should:  and  I  cannot  help  directing  your  attention  to 
the  significant  fact,  that  while  the  word  ''mistress," 
applied  to  a  woman,  serves  at  once  to  mark  her  out 
for  reprobation,  there  is  no  corresponding  term,  which, 
applied  to  man,  produces  the  same  effect;  and  this 
because  the  interests  of  the  state  are  still  paramount 
to  the  interests  of  the  soul  itself. 

In  speaking  of  the  court  of  Charles  II.,  Dr.  William 
Alexander  says,  in  1799:  ''Its  tone  ruined  all  women: 
they  were  either  adored  as  angels,  or  degraded  to 
brute  beasts.  The  satirists,  who  immediately  arose, 
despised  what  they  had  themselves  created,  and  gave 
the  character  to  every  line  that  has  since  been  written 
concerning  women,''  down  to  the  verses  of  Churchill, 
and  that  often-quoted,  well-remembered  line  of  Pope, 
with  which  we  need  not  soil  our  lips. 

We  may  quote  here  a  criticism  upon  the  "Cinq- 
Mars"  of  Alfred  de  Vigny,  taken  from  Lady  Morgan's 
"France."  You  will  'find  it  especially  interesting, 
because  it  bears  on  what  has  been  suggested  of  the 


HOW   PUBLIC    OPINION   IS   MADE.  67 

influence  of  history,  and  may  be  compared  with  a 
portion  of  one  of  Margaret  Fuller's  letters,  in  which 
she  criticises  the  same  work,  and  makes,  in  her  own 
way,  parallel  reflections. 

''I  dipped  also,"  says  Lady  Morgan,  ''into  the 
'Cinq-Mars'  of  Alfred  de  Vigny,  a  charming  produc- 
tion. It  gives  the  best  course  of  practical  politics,  in 
its  exposition  of  the  miseries  and  vices  incidental  to 
the  institutions  of  the  middle  ages.  Behold  Riche- 
lieu and  Louis  XIIL  in  the  plentitude  of  their  bad 
passions  and  unquestioned  power,  when — 

'Torture  interrogates  and  Pain  replies.' 

Behold,  too,  their  victims, — Urbain,  Grandier,  De 
Thou,  Cinq-Mars,  and  the  long,  heart-rending  list 
of  worth,  genius,  and  innocence  immolated.  With 
such  pictures  in  the  hands  of  the  youth  of  France,  it 
is  impossible  they  should  retrograde.  How  different 
from  the  works  of  Louis  XV. 's  days,  when  the  Mari- 
vaux,  Cr^billions,  and  Le  Clos  wrote  for  the  especial 
corruption  of  that  society  from  whose  profligacy  they 
borrowed  their  characters,  incidents,  and  morals! 
Men  would  not  now  dare  to  name,  in  the  presence  of 
virtuous  women,  works  which  were  once  in  the  hands 
of  every  female  of  rank  in  France, — works  which, 
like  the  novels  of  Richardson,  had  the  seduction  of 
innocence  for  their  story,  and  witty  libertinism  and 
triumphant  villany  for  their  principal  features. 

With  such  a  literature,  it  was  almost  a  miracle 
that  one  virtuous  woman  or  one  honest  man  was  left 


68  THE    COLLEGE. 

in  the  country  to  create  that  revolution  which  was  to 
purify  its  pestiferous  atmosphere.  Admirable  for  its 
genius,  this  work  is  still  more  so  for  its  honesty." 

In  the  praise  given  to  this  new  literature  is  implied 
the  censure  passed  upon  the  old.  Of  direct  educa- 
tional literature,  we  may  say,  that  all  writers,  from 
Rousseau  to  Gregory,  Fordyce,  and  the  very  latest 
in  our  own  country,  have  exercised  an  enervating 
influence  over  public  opinion,  and  helped  to  form 
the  popular  estimate  of  female  ability.  Rousseau's 
influence  is  still  powerful.  Let  me  quote  from  his 
''Emilius:"  ''Researches  into  abstract  and  specula- 
tive truths,  the  principles  and  axioms  of  science, — 
in  short,  every  thing  which  tends  to  generalize  ideas, 
— is  out  of  the  province  of  woman.  All  her  ideas 
should  be  directed  to  the  study  of  men.  As  to  works 
of  genius,  they  are  beyond  her  capacity.  She  has  not 
precision  enough  to  succeed  in  accurate  science;  and 
physical  knowledge  belongs  to  those  who  are  most 
active  and  most  inquisitive." 

Alas  for  Mary  Somerville,  Janet  Taylor,  and 
Maria  Mitchell,  as  well  as  for  the  popular  idea  that 
women  are  a  curious  sex!  He  goes  on:  ''Woman 
should  have  the  skill  to  incline  us  to  do  every  thing 
which  her  sex  will  not  enable  her  to  do  of  herself. 
She  should  learn  to  penetrate  the  real  sentiments 
of  men,  and  should  have  the  art  to  communicate 
those  which  are  most  agreeable  to  them,  without 
seeming  to  intend  it." 

This   sounds   somewhat   barefaced;   but   it  is   the 


HOW    PUBLIC    OPINION    IS    MADE.  69 

model  of  all  the  advice  which  society  is  still  giving. 
It  is  refreshing  to  catch  the  first  gleam  of  something 
better  from  the  author  of  ''Sanford  and  Merton." 
"If  women,"  says  Mr.  Day,  ''are  in  general  feeble 
both  in  body  and  mind,  it  arises  less  from  nature 
than  from  education.  We  encourage  a  vicious  in- 
dolence and  inactivity,  which  we  falsely  call  delicacy. 
Instead  of  hardening  their  minds  by  the  severer  prin- 
ciples of  reason  and  philosophy,  we  breed  them  to 
useless  arts  which  terminate  in  vanity  or  sensuality. 
They  are  taught  nothing  but  idle  postures  and  fool- 
ish accomplishments."  Dr.  Gregory  recommends  dis- 
simulation. Dr.  Fordyce  advises  women  to  increase 
their  power  by  reserve  and  coldness!  When  we  hear 
of  the  educational  restraints  still  exercised,  of  the  in- 
nocent amusements  forbidden,  the  compositions  which 
may  be  written,  but  not  read,  lest  the  young  girl 
might  some  time  become  the  lecturer, — we  cannot 
but  feel  that  the  step  is  not  so  very  long  from  that 
time  and  country  to  this,  and  wonder  at  the  folly 
which  still  refuses  to  trust  the  laws  of  God  to  a 
natural  development.  It  is  mortifying,  too,  to  listen  to 
the  silly  rhapsodies  of  Madame  de  Stael.  ''Though 
Rousseau  has  endeavored,"  she  says,  "to  prevent 
women  from  interfering  in  public  affairs,  and  acting 
a  brilliant  part  in  political  life,  yet,  in  speaking  of 
them,  how  much  has  he  done  it  to  their  satisfaction! 
If  he  wished  to  deprive  them  of  some  rights  foreign 
to  their  sex,  how  has  he  for  ever  asserted  for  them 
all  those  to  which  it  has  a  claim!     What  signifies 


70  THE    COLLEGE. 

it,"  she  continues,  ''that  his  reason  disputes  with 
them  for  empire,  while  his  heart  is  still  devotedly 
theirs?" 

What  signifies  it?  It  signifies  a  great  deal.  It 
signifies  all  the  difference  between  life  in  a  solitary 
seraglio,  and  life  with  God's  world  for  an  inheritance; 
all  the  difference  between  being  the  worn-out  toy  of 
one  sensualist,  and  the  inspiration  of  an  unborn  age; 
all  the  difference  between  the  butterfly  and  the  seraph, 
between  the  imprisoned  nun  and  Longfellow's  sweet 
St.  Philomel.  When  we  read  these  words,  we  thank 
Margaret  Fuller  for  the  very  criticism  which  once 
moved  a  girlish  ire.  ''De  Stael's  name,"  she  wrote, 
''was  not  clear  of  offence;  she  could  not  forget  the 
woman  in  the  thought.  Sentimental  tears  often 
dimmed  her  eagle  glance."  What  a  grateful  con- 
trast to  all  such  sentimentalism  do  we  find  in  Mar- 
garet's own  sketch  of  the  early  life  of  Miranda! 

"This  child  was  early  led  to  feel  herself  a  child 
of  the  spirit.  She  took  her  place  easily  in  the  world  of 
mind.  A  dignified  sense  of  self -independence  was  given 
as  all  her  portion,  and  she  found  it  a  sure  anchor. 
Her  relations  with  others  were  fixed  with  equal 
security.  With  both  men  and  women  they  were 
noble;  affectionate  without  passion,  intellectual  with- 
out coldness.  The  world  was  free  to  her,  and  she 
lived  freely  in  it.  Outward  adversity  came,  and 
inward  conflict;  but  that  self-respect  had  early  been 
awakened,  which  must  always  lead  at  last  to  an  out- 
ward security  and  an  inward  peace."     Here  is  the 


HOW    PUBLIC   OPINION   IS   MADE.  71 

great  difficulty  in  the  education  of  woman,  to  lead 
her  to  a  point  from  which  she  shall  naturally  develop 
self-respect,  and  learn  self-help.  Old  prejudices  extin- 
guish her  as  an  individual,  oblige  her  to  renounce  the 
inspiration  in  herself,  and  yield  to  all  the  weaknesses 
and  wickednesses  of  man.  Look  at  Chaucer's  beau- 
ideal  of  a  wife  in  the  tale  of  Griselda,  dwindled  now 
into  the  patient  Grissel  of  modern  story.  In  her  a 
woman  is  represented  as  perfect,  because  she  ardently 
and  constantly  loved  a  monster  who  gained  her  by 
guile,  and  brutally  abused  her.  Put  the  matter  into 
plain  English,  and  see  if  you  would  respect  such'  a 
woman  now.  No:  and  therefore  is  it  somewhat  sad, 
that,  in  Tennyson's  new  Idyll,  he  must  recreate  this 
ideal  in  the  Enid  of  Geraint;  and  that,  out  of  four 
pictures  of  womanly  love,  only  one  seems  human  and 
natural,  and  that,  the  guilty  love  of  Guinevere.  The 
recently  awakened  interest  in  the  position  of  woman 
is  flooding  the  country  with  books  relating  to  her  and 
her  sphere.  They  have,  their  very  titles  have,  an  im- 
mense educational  influence.  Let  me  direct  your 
attention  to  one  published  in  Boston  by  a  leading 
house  last  winter,  and  entitled  ''Remarkable  Women 
of  Different  Ages  and  Nations."  Let  us  read  the 
names  of  the  thirteen  women  with  whose  lives  it 
seeks  to  entertain  the  public: — 

Beatrice  Cenci,  the  parricide. 

Charlotte  Corday,  the  assassin. 

Joanna  Southcote,  the  English  prophetess. 

Jemima  Wilkinson,  the  American  prophetess. 


72  THE    COLLEGE. 

Madame  Ursinus,  the  poisoner. 
Madame  Gottfried,  the  poisoner. 
Mademoiselle  Clairon,  the  actress. 
Harriet  Mellon,  the  actress. 
Madame  Lenormand,  the  fortune-teller. 
Angelica  Kauffman,  the  artist. 
Mary  Baker,  the  imposter. 
Pope  Jean,  the  pontiff. 
Joan  of  Arc,  the  warrior. 

Look  at  the  list !  Assassins,  parricides,  and  poison- 
ers, fortune-tellers,  and  actresses!  Let  us  hope  they 
will  always  remain  remarkable!  In  this  list  we  have 
the  name  of  one  woman  who  never  lived,  and  of  four 
at  least  who  in  this  country  would  owe  all  their  celeb- 
rity to  the  police  court;  and  this  while  history  pants 
to  be  delivered  of  noble  lives  not  known  at  all,  like 
the  women  of  the  House  of  Montefeltro,  or  little 
known,  like  the  pure  and  heroic  wife  of  Cond6,  Clem- 
ence  de  Maille.  And  by  what  black  art,  let  us  ask, 
are  such  names  as  Beatrice,  and  Charlotte  Corday, 
sweet  Joan  of  Arc,  and  dear  Angelica  Kauffman,  a 
noble  woman,  whose  happiness  was  wrecked  upon 
a  fiendish  jest,  juggled  into  this  list?  As  well  migjht 
you  put  Brutus  who  killed  great  Caesar,  and  Lucretia 
of  spotless  fame,  and  Andrea  del  Sarto  who  loved  a 
faithless  wife,  into  the  same  category.  Such  associ- 
ation, however  false,  helps  to  educate  the  popular 
mind. 

Of  the  power  of  adages,  and  that  barbaric  experi- 
ence and  civilization  of  which  they  are  generally  the 
exponent,  we  might  write  volumes;  but  the  subject 


HOW    PUBLIC    OPINION    IS   MADE.  73 

must  be  dismissed  in  this  comiection  without  a  word. 
We  must  pass  on  to  consider  the  force  of  social  in- 
stincts and  prejudices  which  underlie  this  general 
literature,  and  are  as  much  stronger  than  it  as  the 
character  of  a  man  is  stronger  than  his  intellectual 
quality.  A  lecturer  once  said,  '^  that  the  first  prejudice 
which  women  have  to  encounter  is  one  which  exists 
before  they  are  born,  which  leads  fathers  instinctively 
to  look  forward  to  the  birth  of  sons,  and  to  leave  little 
room  in  their  happy  or  ambitious  schemes  for  the 
coming  of  a  daughter."  Not  long  since,  a  highly 
educated  Englishman  told  me  that  this  remark  smote 
him  to  the  heart.  "I  never  expected  to  have  any 
thing  but  a  son,"  he  declared;  ''and,  when  my  little 
Minnie  was  born,  I  had  made  no  preparation  for  her. 
I  had  neither  a  thought  nor  a  scheme  at  her  service." 

Fanny  Wright,  in  some  essays  published  thirty 
years  ago,  says,  /'There  are  some  parents  who  take 
one  step  in  duty,  and  halt  at  the  second.  Our  sons," 
they  say,  "will  have  to  exercise  political  rights,  and  fill 
public  offices.  We  must  help  them  to  whatever 
knowledge  there  is  going,  and  make  them  as  sharp- 
witted  as  their  neighbors.  As  for  our  daughters,  they 
can  never  be  any  thing;  in  fact,  they  are  nothing. 
We  give  them  to  their  mothers,  who  will  take  them  to 
church  and  dancing-school,  and,  with  the  aid  of  fine 
clothes,  fit  them  out  for  the  market. 

"But,"  she  goes  on  to  say,  "let  possibilities  be  what 
they  will,  no  man  has  a  right  to  calculate  on  them  for 
his  sons.     He  has  only  to  consider  them  as  human 


74  THE    COLLEGE. 

beings,  and  insure  them  a  full  development  of  all  the 
faculties  which  belong  to  them  as  such.  So,  as  re- 
spects his  daughters,  he  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
injustice  of  law,  nor  the  absurdities  of  society.  His 
duty  is  plain, — to  train  them  up  as  human  beings,  to 
seek  for  them,  and  with  them,  all  just  knowledge. 
Who  among  men  contend  best  with  the  difficulties  of 
life  and  society, — the  strong-minded  or  the  weak,  the 
wise  or  the  foolish?  Who  best  control  and  mould 
opposing  circumstances, — the  educated  or  the  igno- 
rant?    What  is  true  of  them  is  true  of  women  also." 

In  the  customs  of  nations,  women  find  the  most 
discouraging  educational  influences.  While  with  us 
these  customs  all  set  one  way,  they  are  easily  broken 
through  by  the  untutored  races,  who  still  rely  on  the 
force  of  their  primal  instincts.  When  Captain  Wallis 
went  to  see  the  Queen  of  Otaheite,  a  marsh  which 
crossed  the  way  proved  a  formidable  obstacle  to  the 
puny  Anglo-Saxon.  No  sooner  did  the  queen  per- 
ceive it,  than,  taking  him  up  as  if  he  were  a  meal-bag, 
she  threw  him  over  her  shoulder,  and  strode  along. 
Nobody  smiled;  even  Captain  Wallis  does  not  appear 
to  have  felt  mortified.  These  people  were  accustomed 
to  the  physical  strength  of  their  queen.  It  would 
be  well  if  civilized  nations  could  imitate  them,  far 
enough  at  least  to  remember,  that  wherever  strength, 
whether  mental  or  physical,  is  found,  there  it  certainly 
belongs. 

In  Peru  and  the  Formosa  Isles,  it  is  the  women 
who   choose  their  husbands,  and  not  the  men  who 


HOW   PUBLIC   OPINION   IS   MADE.  75 

choose  their  wives;  and,  from  the  moment  of  mar- 
riage, the  man  takes  up  his  abode  in  his  wife's  family. 
Lord  of  creation  in  every  other  respect,  he  still  owes 
to  her  whatever  social  standing  and  privileges  he  may 
possess.  Such  an  exception  is  valueless,  save  that  it 
shows  us  that  sex  does  not  absolutely,  of  itself,  deter- 
mine such  customs. 

The  African  kings  are  permitted  to  have  many 
wives;  but  they  respect  the  chastity  of  women,  and 
require  it.  Dr.  Livingstone  tells  us  of  an  instance  in 
which  the  royal  succession  finally  lapsed  upon  a  wo- 
man. Her  counsellors  forbade  her  to  marry  a  single 
husband,  telling  her  that  it  would  create  jealousies 
and  divisions  in  the  tribe.  She  must  follow  the  royal 
custom.  But  pure  womanly  nature  spoke  louder  than 
the  counsellors.  The  poor  queen  renounced  marriage 
altogether,  and  associated  a  half-brother  in  the  govern- 
ment, upon  whose  children  she  settled  the  succession. 
Let  this  beautiful  fact  shame  those  coward  souls  who 
fear  to  trust  to  the  instinctive  purity  of  the  sex. 

He  goes  on  to  state,  in  a  recent  letter,  that  he 
has  found  nothing  more  remarkable,  among  the  highly 
intelligent  tribes  of  the  Upper  Sambesi,  than  the  re- 
spect universally  accorded  to  women. 

"Many  of  the  tribes  are  governed  by  a  female  chief. 
If  you  demand  any  thing  of  a  man,"  remarks  the  in- 
trepid explorer,  ''he  replies,  'I  will  talk  with  my  wife 
about  it.'  If  the  woman  consents,  your  demand  is 
granted.  If. she  refuse,  you  will  receive  a  negative 
reply.     Women   vote   in   all   the   public   assemblies. 


76  THE    COLLEGE. 

Among  the  Bushwanas  and  Kaffirs,  the  men  swear  by 
their  fathers;  but  among  the  veritable  Africans,  occu- 
pying the  centre  of  the  continent,  they  always  swear 
by  their  mother.  If  a  young  man  falls  in  love  with  a 
maiden  of  another  village,  he  leaves  his  own,  and  takes 
up  his  dwelling  in  hers.  He  is  obliged  to  provide  in 
part  for  the  maintenance  of  his  mother-in-law,  and  to 
assume  a  respectful  attitude,  a  sort  of  semi-kneeling, 
in  her  presence.  I  was  so  much  astonished  at  all 
these  marks  of  respect  for  women,  that  I  inquired  of 
the  Portuguese  if  such  had  always  been  the  habit 
of  the  country.  They  assured  me  that  such  had  al- 
ways been  the  case." 

If  women  were  unwise  managers  of  money, — a 
statement  frequently  made,  but  which  we  may  safely 
deny, — it  would  be  owing  to  the  custom  which  has, 
through  long  ages,  put  the  purse  in  the  hands  of  ''their 
master;"  a  custom  so  old,  that  to  ''husband"  one's 
resources  is  a  phrase  which  expresses  man's  pecuniary 
responsibility,  and  is  always  equivalent  to  locking 
one's  money  up.  "It  will  be  time  enough,"  says  Mrs. 
Kirkland,  "to  expect  from  woman  a  just  economy 
when  she  is  permitted  to  distribute  a  portion  of  the 
family  resources.  Witness  those  proud  subscription- 
lists  where  one  reads,  'Mr.  B.,  twenty  dollars;'  and, 
just  below,  'Mrs.  B.,  ten  dollars,' — which  ten  dollars 
Mrs.  B.  never  saw,  and  would  ask  for  in  vain  to  dis- 
tribute for  her  own  pleasure." 

And  this  custom  has  such  educational  force,  that 
very  liberal  men  refuse  the  smallest  pecuniary  inde- 


HOW   PUBLIC    OPINION    IS   MADE.  77 

pendence  to  their  wives  to  their  very  dying  day. 
^'The  Turk  does  not  lock  up  his  wife  with  more  care 
than  the  Christian  his  strong  box.  To  that  lock  there 
is  ever  but  one  key,  and  that  the  master  carries  in  his 
pocket.  The  case  is  not  altered  when  the  wife  is  about 
to  close  her  weary  eyes  in  death.  She  may  have 
earned  or  inherited  or  saved  the  greater  part  of  their 
common  property,  but  without  his  consent  she  cannot 
bequeath  a  dollar."  This  passage  reminds  us  of  a 
criticism  on  the  marriage  service  attributed  to  Sir 
John  Bowring.  This  eccentric  man  considers  it 
wicked  from  beginning  to  end.  ''Look  at  it,"  he 
says:  '''with  this  ring  I  thee  wed,' — that's  sorcery; 
'with  my  body  I '  thee  worship,' — that's  idolatry; 
'and  with  all  my  worldly  goods  I  thee  endow,' — 
that's  a  lie!" 

It  is  the  long  customs  of  mankind  which  stand  in 
the  way  of  educating  women  to  trades  and  profes- 
sions. These  matters  are  mainly  in  woman's  own 
hands.  One  is  glad  to  see  in  the  English  Parliament 
certain  statements  made  in  this  connection,  and  others 
also  in  a  London  pamphlet  on  the  nature  of  munic- 
ipal government.  In  reply  to  the  common  argument 
that  women  ought  not  to  enter  certain  vocations, 
because  they  would  ultimately  find  themselves  incom- 
petent, it  is  stated,  that,  in  all  deUcate  handicrafts, 
men  do  the  same.  Thus,  of  those  who  learn  to  make 
watches  and  watchmakers'  tools,  not  one-fifth  con- 
tinue in  the  trade;  and,  in  the  decoration  of  that 
delicate  ware  called  Bohemian  glass,  by  far  the  greater 


78  THE    COLLEGE. 

portion   of   apprentices   give   it    up    on    account   of 
natural  unfitness. 

It  is  the  custom  of  society  which  sustain  the  prej- 
udice against  literary  women.  When  Dr.  Aikin 
published  his  ''Miscellaneous  Pieces/'  Fox  met  him  in 
the  street.  ''I  particularly  admire,"  said  the  orator, 
complimenting  him,  ''your  essay  on  Inconsistency." 
— "That,"  said  Aikin,  "is  my  sister's." — "Ah!  well, 
I  like  that  on  Monastic  Institutions." — "That  is  also 
hers,"  replied  the  honest  man;  and,  in  ^  tumult  of 
confusion.  Fox  bowed  himself  away.  Had  pubUc 
feeling  been  right,  how  gracefully  he  might  have  con- 
gratulated the  brother  on  his  sister's  ability,  how  gladly 
might  that  brother  have  seen  her  excel  himself!  This 
sister  was  that  Mrs.  Barbauld  who  afterward  did  such 
womanly  service,  that  we  feel  tempted  to  forgive 
the  early  fit  of  sentimentality  which  found  vent  in 
that    rhymed    nonsense,    concluding, — 

"Your  best,  your  sweetest  empire  is  to  please." 

The  manners  of  men  have  their  educational  influ- 
ence. The  quiet  turning-aside  from  women  when 
matters  of  business,  politics,  or  science  are  discussed; 
the  common  saying,  "What  have  women  to  do  with 
that?  let  them  mind  their  knitting,  or  their  house 
affairs;"  the  short  answer  when  an  interested  ques- 
tion is  asked,  "You  wouldn't  understand  it,  if  I  told 
you," — all  these  depress  and  enervate,  and,  even  if 
not  spoken,  the  spirit  of  them  animates  all  social  life. 
"Men  are  suspicious,"  wrote  Dr.  Alexander  in  1790, 


HOW    PUBLIC    OPINION    IS    MADE.  79 

'Hhat  a  rational  education  would  open  the  eyes  of 
women,  and  prompt  them  to  assert  the  rights  of  which 
they  have  always  been  deprived."  But  education 
could  not  be  withheld  nor  eyes  closed  for  ever;  there- 
fore the  time  has  come  to  claim  these  rights.  The 
Sorbonne  is  already  asked  why  it  confers  degrees 
upon  women  with  one  hand,  while  it  quietly  locks 
Margaret  Fuller  out  of  Arago's  lecture-room  with  the 
other.  Need  we  inquire  what  influence  it  would  have 
upon  society,  if  all  literature  and  scientific  opportuni- 
ties, if  all  societies  devoted  to  natural  history  and 
mathematics,  if  all  colleges  and  public  libraries  the 
world  over,  were  thrown  open  to  woman? 

In  inferior  circles,  where  no  leading  minds  preside, 
it  would  be  as  it  is  now:  there  would  be  much  idle 
prating,  much  foolish  delay,  much  inconsequent  dis- 
cussion; but  woman  is  quick  to  recognize  genius,  to 
listen  when  wisdom  speaks.  She  chatters,  to  be  sure, 
in  the  presence  of  fools;  but,  when  earnest  men  come 
to  know  the  value  of  her  enthusiasm,  they  will  never 
be  willing  to  lose  it.  When  the  great  door  of  the 
scholarly  and  scientific  retreat  is  once  thrown  open, 
you  will  be  surprised  to  see  the  crowd  ready  to  enter; 
and,  when  the  sexes  kindle  into  intellectual  life  to- 
gether, many  a  woman's  coals  will  be  modestly  laid 
upon  an  honored  altar,  and  the  flames  will  rise  all  the 
higher  because  they  have  been  so  fed. 

How  can  we  estimate  sufliciently  the  corrupting  in- 
fluence of  the  newspapers  of  the  land? 

We  may  hope  your  prejudices  will  defend  woman 


80  THE    COLLEGE. 

here,  and  you  will  acknowledge  that  the  minds  cannot 
be  kept  pure  before  whom  their  details  are  set.  Let 
us  go  father,  and  say  that  they  cannot  be  kept  pure, 
coming  in  contact  as  they  do  with  minds  among 
men  that  gloat  over  such  records.  God  is  just,  and 
his  compensations  are  terrible.  If  you  do  not  spare 
the  purity  of  the  lowest  in  the  land,  you  cannot  save 
that  of  your  wife  and  daughter.  If  you  will  not  pro- 
tect the  vulgar  against  themselves,  you  cannot  protect 
the  refined  against  the  vulgar.  He  is  not  a  pure  man, 
who,  among  his  fellows,  thinks  a  thought  or  utters  a 
word  he  would  blush  to  have  his  sister  hear.  She  is 
not  a  pure  woman,  who,  in  the  seclusion  of  her 
chamber,  or  gossip  with  her  household,  omits  one  of 
the  proprieties  which  delicacy  requires.  She  has  no 
title  to  our  respect,  who  is  not  secure  in  her  own. 
How  can  we  reach  such  a  standard  as  this,  if  we 
invite  pollution  daily  across  our  threshold,  and  call  it 
harmless  because  it  dresses  in  printer's  ink?  It  is 
not  enough  that  much  of  the  obscenity  is  pure  inven- 
tion. The  profit  of  the  scandal  overbalances  the  cost 
of  the  libel.  The  simplest  item  is  turned  to  gross 
account.  ^Even  the  intimation  that  the  postmaster 
has  placed  a  woman  at  the  ladies'  window  in  New 
York  has  to  be  coupled  with  the  insinuation  that  she 
would  have  ''done  better  at  the  gentlemen's."  What 
business  have  you  or  I  with  details  that  concern  only 
judge  and  jury?  What  good  does  it  do  society  to 
quote  high  legal  authority  upon  ''flirtation,"  unless, 
indeed,  we  learn  thereby  to  estimate  aright  the  cor- 


HOW    PUBLIC    OPINION    IS    MADE.  81 

rupting  power  of  the  first  wrong  step?  Police  reports, 
vulgar  anecdotes,  shocking  accidents,  and  trivial  gossip 
a  child  might  be  ashamed  to  repeat,  make  up  the  mass 
of  our  daily  sheets.  Happy  is  the  editor  who  offers 
three  columns  of  common  sense  daily  to  his  readers. 
When,  alas!  shall  we  have  a  public  willing  to  pay  for 
common  sense  and  pure  reading  alone? 

A  woman  ought  to  turn  like  a  flash  of  light  from  a 
foul  page,  a  coarse  and  vulgar  word.  No  wit  should 
ever  tempt  her  to  read  the  one,  or  repeat  the  other; 
and  what  I  say  of  woman,  I  mean  of  man.  I  have 
not  two  separate  moral  standards  for  the  sexes. 

Margaret  Fuller  speaks  somewhere  of  certain  habits 
of  impure  speech  which  she  had  heard  attributed  to 
ladies  in  a  New  York  hotel.  What  foundation  that 
story  had,  we  may  never  find;  but  all  of  us  know 
some  women  before  whom  we  keep  the  coldest  re- 
serve, and  with  whom  we  would  never  touch  many  a 
subject  we  should  be  willing  to  discuss  with  any  pure- 
minded  man.  Ladies!  Not  all  the  gold  of  Pactolus, 
not  all  the  beauty  of  Anadyomene,  not  all  the  wisdom 
of  Minerva,  could  make  such  women  ladies!  We 
cannot  redeem  the  poor  denizens  of  Five  Points  till 
we  have  redeemed  those  of  the  Fifth  Avenue. 

Our  own  children  must  prattle  oaths,  if  we  will  not 
hush  the  drunken  brawler  in  the  streets. 

Note. — When  this  lecture  was  first  delivered,  in  1858,  it  excited  more  dis- 
cussion than  any  "revolutionary  notions"  of  which  I  have  ever  been  suspected. 
Since  then,  the  same  ideas,  as  applied  to  other  questions,  have  been  expressed 
in  various  quarters.  I  think  a  thorough  classical  education  necessary  to  a 
college  bred  man.  As  far  as  I  have  any  opinions  to  express,  they  coincide  with 
those  recently  uttered  by  John  Stuart  Mill  at  St.  Andrew's. 
10 


82  THE    COLLEGE. 


I  wish  to  suatain  the  remarks  of  the  text  by  the  following  quotations: — 

' '  Many  things  with  the  Greeks  and  Romans  most  venerable  have  not  merely 
lost  their  sanctity  in  our  eyes,  but  present  contemptible  and  even  ludicrous 
ideas  to  us.  Hence,  any  illusion  to  them,  or  any  expression  of  the  feelings  con- 
nected with  them,  or  even  a  reference  to  the  habits  of  thinking  which  those 
feelings  have  produced,  must  have  an  operation  most  unpropitious." — Lord 
Brougham. 

' '  The  fictions  constituting  the  epic  poetry  of  Homer,  Virgil,  and  their  imita- 
tors, so  far  from  being  consonant  with  the  taste  and  sense  of  modem  readers, 
are,  on  the  contrary,  often  annoying,  from  the  absence  of  all  moral  or  poetical 
justice." — "The  gods  who  preside  in  this  scenic  exhibition  are  tainted  with 
every  vice  which  has  since  degraded  their  supposed  subordinates  of  the  human 
race.  Cruelty,  revenge,  deceit,  hatred,  unrelenting  rancor,  and  unbridled  lust, 
are  the  quaUties  which  call  for  approval  in  a  generation  professing  to  feel  and 
practise  virtues  of  an  opposite  nature.  An  exterminating  war  is  undertaken 
for  the  sake  of  a  vacillating  advilteress,  and  its  heroes  quarrel  implacably  about 
the  possession  of  their  female  slaves.  Ulysses,  on  his  return  home,  winds  up 
the  'Odyssey'  by  a  wholesale  slaughter  of  his  disorganized  subjects,  hangs 
up  a  dozen  censurable  females  in  a  row,  and  puts  Melanthius  to  a  lingering 
death  by  gradual  mutilation." — "In  their  social  relations,  the  Greeks  were 
licentious  and  exquisitely  depraved.  In  their  domestic  habits,  they  were  primi- 
tive, destitute,  and  uncleanly." — Dr.  Jacob  Biqelow. 

These  words  represent  the  re-action  of  Christian  morality  against  the  abuses 
of  classical  study,  to  which  I  allude  in  my  text.  But  let  the  classics  be  taught 
properly,  and  morality  will  have  no  complaint  to  make.  We  cannot  under- 
stand the  history  of  the  world,  without  an  intelligent  investigation  of  its  begin- 
nings; but  we  should  be  carefully  protected  against  assuming,  as  reasonable  and 
proper,  either  the  habits  and  opinions  or  the  sarcasms  of  an  extinct  experience. 


LIVES   THAT    HAVE    MODIFIED    PUBLIC   OPINION.    83 


IIL 

THE  MEANING  OF  THE  LIVES  THAT  HAVE  MODIFIED 
PUBLIC  OPINION. 

"Speak!  or  I  go  no  further. 
I  need  a  goal,  an  aim.     I  cannot  toil, 
Because  the  steps  are  here;  in  their  ascent, 
Tell  me  The  End,  or  I  sit  still  and  weep." 

NaiHrliche  Tochter. 

W/^  have  considered  the  controlling  influence  ex- 
*  ^  ercised  by  consolidated  public  opinion  con- 
cerning women.  We  have  asked  from  what  sources 
this  opinion  was  derived.  We  have  now  to  consider 
some  individual  lives  which  have  set  it  at  defiance, 
and  in  that  way  done  something  towards  its  recon- 
struction. 

Mary  Wollstonecraft  is  chiefly  known  in  this  coun- 
try as  the  wife  of  Godwin,  and  the  author  of  a  '' Vin- 
dication of  the  Rights  of  Woman."  This  book  is 
often  accused  of  the  most  irreligious  and  libertine 
tendencies;  and,  for  many  years,  her  name  stood  in 
my  own  mind  as  the  representative  of  an  unfortunate 
woman  of  genius,  unbalanced  in  character,  and  only 
to  be  remembered  by  the  obstacles  she  had  laid  in  the 
path  of  her  sex.  I  turned  instinctively  from  the  idea 
I  had  somehow  conceived  of  her;  nor  was  it  till  a 
singular  literary  fact,  the  exponent  of  her  individual 
power,  arrested  my  attention,  that  I  was  tempted  to 
take  up  the  ''Rights  of  Woman." 


84  THE    COLLEGE. 

In  making  a  rapid  survey  of  English  literature,  to 
ascertain  how  many  women  had  made  a  decisive 
mark  upon  it,  and  how  many  works  had  been  pub- 
lished especially  bearing  upon  woman's  advancement, 
I  at  first  experienced  a  bitter  disappointment.  Upon 
approaching  the  year  1800,  however,  I  found  a  stream 
of  literature  rushing  in,  for  which  I  could  not  ac- 
count. It  united  many  rivulets  of  thought  and  life. 
Some  volumes  were  heavy  and  oppressive  in  a  double 
sense;  some  were  light  as  pamphlets;  some  consisted 
of  translations  from  other  languages;  some  were  bi- 
ographies; many  were  attempts  at  reconstruction  on 
a  rotten  foundation;  others,  an  attempt  at  the  re- 
building of  society  from  its  very  base.  But  these 
works  all  bore  the  same  stamp,  an  impress  powerful, 
but  healthy.  It  seemed  as  if  one  thought  had  ani- 
mated all  these  workers  who  had  taken  society  by 
surprise;  for  the  prejudice  and  bigotry  they  must 
have  aroused  had  left  no  corresponding  trace.  The 
prefaces  generally  began,  ''On  account  of  the  interest 
lately  excited,"  ''The  public  mind  seeming  now  to  be 
interested;"  and  I  read  very  few  volumes  before  I 
discovered  that  the  power  which  had  aroused  and  in- 
terested was  no  other  than  Mary  Wollstonecraft's 
"Rights  of  Woman." 

These  books  ranged  onward  from  1790,  and  the 
force  of  the  influence  was  not  spent  for  twenty  years. 
Among  them,  I  recall,  at  this  moment.  Dr.  Alexander's 
"History  of  Women"  in  two  quarto  volumes;  Matilda 
Betham's  "Biographical  Dictionary,"  an  honest,  if  not 


LIVES   THAT   HAVE    MODIFIED   PUBLIC   OPINION.     85 

a  valuable,  attempt  to  supply  a  want  still  felt  in 
English  literature;  and  Colton's  translation  of  the 
mathematical  works  of  Maria  Agnesi.  These  were 
born  of  a  common  mother.  I  read  the  ''Vindica- 
tion," therefore,  with  persistent  care;  looking  with 
fruitless  question  for  the  second  and  third  volumes 
that  were  promised.  Could  this  be  the  book  which 
had  been  so  abused  for  half  a  century?  The  Amer- 
ican edition  had  been  published  before  garbling 
became  the  fashion;  but  I  took  pains  to  collate  it 
carefully  with  the  English.  It  was  all  in  vain.  I 
found  only  a  simple,  determined,  eloquent  plea  for  a 
proper  education  for  women,  urged  on  social,  Imoral, 
and  religious  grounds;  an  earnest  protest  against 
Rousseau  and  Dr.  Gregory;  and  a  demand  that  men 
should  be  subject  to  the  same  moral  laws  as  women. 
Very  revolutionary  this!  Reprint  it,  under  modern 
sponsorship,  and  you  would  find  it  perhaps  too  heavy 
to  read.  It  would  only  repeat  what  you  all  know, 
and  you  would  miss  the  fanatical  spice  of  our  later 
speech.  Yet  this  book  was  so  much  needed  when 
it  appeared,  that  it  acted  on  the  under-current  of 
English  thought  and  life  like  a  subsoil  plough,  and 
brought  all  manner  of  abominations  to  the  surface. 
The  preface  alone  contains  any  allusion  to  woman's 
political  rights.  It  is  dedicated  to  Talleyrand,  who, 
in  publishing  a  pamphlet  on  national  education,  had 
admitted  the  inconsistency  of  debarring  women  from 
their  exercise.  From  this  preface,  the  world  took 
fright,  and  we  may  judge  in  what  manner  she  intended 


86  THE    COLLEGE. 

to  follow  up  her  plea  for  education.  Let  me  quote 
a  few  passages.  ''I  earnestly  wish,"  she  says,  'Ho 
point  out  in  what  true  dignity  and  human  happi- 
ness consist.  I  wish  to  persuade  women  to  acquire 
strength  both  of  mind  and  body,  and  to  convince 
them,  that  the  soft  phrases,  'susceptibility  of  heart,' 
'delicacy  of  sentiment,'  and  'refinement  of  taste,' 
are  almost  synonymous  with  epithets  of  weakness, 
and  that  those  beings  who  are  the  objects  of  pity,  and 
that  kind  of  love  which  has  been  termed  its  sister, 
will  soon  become  objects  of  contempt." — "An  air 
of  fashion  is  but  a  badge  of  slavery." — "It  follows," 
she  says  farther  on,  "that  women  should  either  be 
shut  up,  like  Eastern  princesses,  or  educated  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  think  and  act  for  themselves." — "Sup- 
pose a  woman  trained  to  obedience,  married  to  a 
sensible  man,  who  directs  her  judgment,  without  per- 
mitting her  to  feel  the  servility  of  her  position.  She 
cannot  ensure  the  life  of  her  protector.  He  may 
die,  and  leave  her  at  the  head  of  a  large  family." — 
"It  is  not  empire,  but  equality,  woman  should  contend 
for.  When  women  are  sufficiently  enlightened  to 
discover  their  real  interests,  they  will  be  very  ready 
to  resign  all  those  prerogatives  of  love  which  are  not 
mutual  for  the  calm  satisfactions  of  friendship  and 
the  tender  confidence  of  habitual  esteem.  Before 
marriage,  they  will  not  assume  any  insolent  airs, 
nor  afterwards  abjectly  submit;  but,  endeavoring  to 
act  like  reasonable  creatures  in  both  relations,  they 
will  not  be  tumbled  from  a  throne  to  a  stool." 


LIVES   THAT   HAVE   MODIFIED    PUBLIC    OPINION.     87 

This  is  the  character  of  the  whole  book.  It  con- 
tains nothing  more  subversive  of  morality  than  these 
words.  You  cannot  do  better  than  read  it,  and  receive, 
as  I  did,  a  lasting  lesson  on  the  folly  of  prejudice.  As 
a  work  of  art,  it  is  irregular  in  method,  and  impul- 
sive in  execution;  facts  not  to  be  wondered  at,  since 
it  was  written  and  printed  in  the  brief  space  of  six 
weeks.  Dr.  Channing  once  wrote  of  her:  '*I  have 
lately  read  Mary  Wollstonecraft's  posthumous  works. 
Her  letters  towards  the  close  of  the  first  volume  are 
the  best  I  ever  read.  They  are  superior  to  Sterne's. 
I  consider  her  the  greatest  woman  of  the  age.  Her 
*  Rights  of  Woman'  is  a  masculine  performance,  and 
ought  to  be  studied  by  her  sex;  the  sentiments  are 
noble  and  generous." 

What,  then,  was  the  character  of  the  woman?  Was 
it  as  strong  and  generous  as  the  sentiments  she  advo- 
cated? Her  life  broke  down  some  social  barriers, 
and,  though  noble  and  heroic  when  viewed  from 
within,  looks  hampered  and  unsatisfactory  from  the 
common  stand-point.  Godwin  has  erected  an  ex- 
quisite monument  to  her  memory,  in  a  sketch  writ- 
ten soon  after  her  decease.  Mary  Wollstonecraft 
was  born  near  London  in  the  year  1759.  She 
came  into  an  unhappy  and  uncongenial  home.  Her 
father  was  a  passionate  tyrant;  her  mother,  compelled 
to  submit  to  his  caprice,  became  like  every  other 
slave,  a  tyrant  where  she  had  the  power,  and  ruled 
her  children  with  a  rod  of  iron.  By  defending  her 
mother  from  her  husband's  violence,  Mary  early  ex- 


88  THE    COLLEGE. 

torted  some  degree  of  affection  from  the  one,  and 
respect  from  the  other.  Her  father  had  some  prop- 
erty, which  he  seems  to  have  squandered  by  frequent 
changes  of  abode;  and  a  day  school  at  Beverley,  in 
Yorkshire,  gave  her  her  principal  advantages  of  edu- 
cation. An  eccentric  clergyman  at  Hoxton,  named 
Clare,  added  some  farther  instruction.  Under  his 
roof,  she  formed  an  intimacy  with  Frances  Blood, 
destined  to  influence  her  whole  life.  This  girl  was 
remarkably  accomplished,  and,  at  the  age  of  eighteen, 
supported  her  father  and  mother  and  their  family 
of  younger  children.  She  was  delicately  neat  and 
proper  in  all  she  did;  and  her  influence  was  of  the 
greatest  benefit  to  Mary,  who  had  often  desired  to 
assist  her  family,  but  was  deterred  by  the  helpless 
condition  of  her  mother.  She  now  went  as  com- 
panion to  a  family  at  Bath,  but  soon  relinquished  the 
position,  on  account  of  her  mother's  serious  illness. 
Mrs.  Wollstonecraft  was  exacting  and  troublesome. 
Mary  nursed  her  with  devoted  care,  but,  after  her 
death,  bade  a  final  farewell  to  her  father's  roof.  His 
affairs  had  become  wretchedly  involved;  and,  with 
Fanny  Blood  and  her  two  sisters,  she  proceeded 
to  open  a  day  school.  At  first,  she  had  looked 
upon  Fanny  as  her  superior,  but  her  own  force 
of  character  soon  found  its  rightful  position.  The 
health  of  her  friend  broke  down  under  her  unnatural 
burden,  and  Mary's  devotion  to  her  for  years  was 
beautiful  to  see.  Her  marriage  and  removal  to  Lis- 
bon, in  a  vain  search  for  health,  soon  put  this  devo- 
tion to  the  test. 


LIVES    THAT    HAVE    MODIFIED    PUBLIC    OPINION.     89 

At  this  point,  Mary  Wollstonecraft's  reputation 
was  unsullied.  She  was  an  admirable  manager,  an 
efl&cient  and  successful  teacher;  yet,  when  Fanny  be- 
came seriously  ill,  she  did  not  hesitate  to  risk  her  only 
means  of  support,  the  prosperity  of  her  school,  to  go 
to  her.  Her  friend,  Dr.  Price,  the  Unitarian  minister, 
and  Mrs.  Burgh,  were  annoyed  at  what  they  consid- 
ered a  quixotic  devotion;  but  they  supplied  her  with 
money,  and  she  went.  A  few  days  closed  in  death 
an  intimacy  of  more  than  ten  years,  which  had  been, 
until  this  time,  Mary's  tenderest  interest  in  life.  On 
her  way  home,  her  moral  energy  saved  the  lives  of  a 
French  crew  in  a  sailing  vessel  which  she  encoun- 
tered, just  about  to  founder.  Her  school  had  suffered 
by  her  absence;  and  the  pressing  necessities  of  Fan- 
ny's family,  in  which  she  still  took  an  interest,  in- 
duced her  to  have  recourse  to  literature.  The  first 
ten  pounds  received  from  her  "Thoughts  on  the  Edu- 
cation of  Daughters"  went  to  their  relief.  Nothing 
can  be  sadder  than  to  see  a  young  girl  placed  as 
Mary  Wollstonecraft  now  was, — compelled  to  fulfil 
the  duties  of  a  father  and  mother  to  younger  brothers 
and  sisters.  The  position  is  unnatural.  Gratitude 
might  be  expected,  but  envy  is  more  often  felt.  The 
personal  advantages  sought  for  their  sakes,  and  not 
to  be  transferred  except  as  a  pecuniary  profit,  she  is 
supposed  to  seek  for  her  own.  Affection  partly  yields, 
and  enthusiasm  does  not  replace  it;  while  she  is 
urged  by  necessities  which  make  it  difficult  to  bear 
the  errors  and  intractabilities  of  those  she  is  providing 


90  THE    COLLEGE. 

for.  Still  loving,  and  desiring  to  provide  for  her  sis- 
ters, Mary  thought  it  better  to  live  apart  from  them, 
and  accepted  a  temporary  position  as  governess  in 
Lord  Kingsborough's  family.  When  they  left  Eng- 
land, she  went  to  Bristol,  and  published  a  novel, 
which,  founded  on  her  ten  years  of  friendly  devo- 
tion, took  the  highest  rank  as  a  work  of  senti- 
ment. The  next  three  years  were  spent  in  her  own 
house,  in  London,  in  the  active  service  of  the  pub- 
lisher, Johnson.  She  translated  from  French,  Ger- 
man, and  Italian,  wrote  several  books  for  children, 
and  took  a  large  share  in  the  conduct  of  the  ''Ana- 
lytical Review." 

Her  translation  of  Salzman's  ''Elements  of  Mo- 
rality" led  to  an  interesting  correspondence  with  its 
author,  who  repaid  the  service,  subsequently,  by 
translating  into  German  her  "Rights  of  Woman." 
These  occupations,  if  they  did  little  towards  the  dis- 
cipline of  her  powers,  served  to  rouse  her  from  the 
dejection  into  which  the  death  of  her  friend  had 
plunged  her.  Her  earnings  were  now  devoted  to  her 
own  family.  One  sister  she  kept  at  Paris  for  two 
years  to  qualify  her  as  a  governess;  another  she 
placed  as  parlor-boarder  at  a  London  school.  Her 
brother  James  she  sent  to  Woolwich;  afterward  pro- 
curing for  him  a  position  in  the  navy,  where  he  soon 
rose  to  be  a  lieutenant.  Her  favorite,  Charles,  she 
placed  with  a  farmer  for  instruction;  and  then  fitted 
him  out  for  America,  where  he  grew  wealthy  on  the 
basis  she  provided.     This  brother  must  have  left  a 


LIVES   THAT   HAVE    MODIFIED    PUBLIC    OPINION.     91 

large  family  in  the  State  of  New  York.  Her  brothers 
and  sisters  thus  e^ablished,  she  attempted  to  rescue 
a  ^pport  for  her  father  from  his  broken  and  confused 
fortunes.  This  proving  impossible,  he  was  supported 
by  her  own  labor,  until  his  death.  The  very  great 
demands  made  upon  her  by  such  natural  obligations 
did  not  prevent  her  from  assuming  others.  She 
adopted  for  her  own  the  child  of  a  dead  friend,  the 
niece  of  John  Hunter.  Her  brilliancy,  her  personal 
beauty,  her  unselfish  devotion,  could  not  fail  to  win 
for  her  many  loving  friends;  and  among  them  the 
French  Revolution  found  her.  The  work  which  first 
gave  her  her  proper  literary  rank  was  her  answer  to 
Burke's  Reflections  upon  that  movement.  She  wrote 
rapidly:  her  pamphlet  was  the  first  of  the  many  that 
appeared,  and  obtained  extraordinary  success.  The 
public  applause  warmed  her,  and  her  next  production 
was  her  celebrated  ''Vindication  of  the  Rights  of 
Woman."  The  startling  energy  with  which  she  ex- 
ploded the  system  of  gallantry,  a  miserable  relic  of 
the  Stuart  courts,  roused  the  popular  indignation.  It 
was  hard  to  reconcile  the  vigor  of  her  rebuke  to  the 
tender  sentiment  which  trembled  through  the  book, 
and  also  to  the  impression  produced  by  Mary  her- 
self, lovely  in  person,  and,  in  the  most  engaging  sense, 
feminine  in  her  manners.  Her  intimacy  with  the  his- 
torical painter,  Fuseli,  followed.  He  was  a  man  of 
powerful  genius  and  strong  prejudices.  His  influ- 
ence upon  Mary,  if  it  was  sometimes  refreshing, 
could  not  always  have  been  beneficial.     The  reader 


'92  THE    COLLEGE. 

of  Haydon's  Autobiography  will  remember  this  man. 
A  wider  knowledge  of  the  world  would  have  pro- 
tected her  from  his  influence:  as  it  was,  she  pur- 
sued the  intimacy  with  unsuspecting  delight;  for 
Fuseli  was  a  contented  husband,  and  his  wife  was 
her  friend.  She  was  now  in  her  thirty-second  year; 
she  had  arrived  at  a  period  when  domestic  happi- 
ness of  some  sort  becomes  essential  to  the  strongest 
woman.  The  fullest-fruited  laurel  then  withers  be- 
fore her  eyes,  if  it  has  not  taken  root  at  her  own 
hearth.  At  the  close  of  the  year  1792,  Mary  took 
refuge  in  Paris  from  the  chagrin  and  restlessness 
which  began  to  oppress  her.  Her  years  of  toil  had 
left  her  sad  and  lonely:  she  needed  to  rest  for  a  little 
while  in  human  affection.  She  could  not  even  write 
to  her  own  satisfaction;  for  her  morbid  fatigue  led 
her  to  reproduce  Fuseli's  cynicism,  and  she  dared  not 
trust  herself.  She  entered  the  best  circles  of  Parisian 
society,  and  became  intimate  with  the  leaders  of  the 
Revolution.  In  four  months  after  her  arrival  oc- 
curred the  most  untoward  event  of  her  life, — her 
marriage  to  a  worthless  American  named  Gilbert 
Imlay;  a  name  rescued  from  oblivion  only  by  his 
temporary  attachment  to  her.  I  say  her  marriage,  for 
Imlay  offered  himself  in  marriage,  and  was  accepted 
as  a  husband;  but,  taking  advantage  of  a  custom  not 
unusual  at  Paris  in  those  disorderly  times,  Mary  re- 
fused to  consummate  the  legal  forms.  Mr.  Imlay  had 
no  property.  Mary  had  a  large  family  to  support; 
and   she   neither  wished   to   become   answerable   for 


LIVES   THAT   HAVE    MODIFIED    PUBLIC    OPINION.     93 

his  debts,  nor  to  make  him  responsible  for  hers.  She 
took  the  name  of  Imlay;  and,  expecting  to  follow  her 
brother  to  America,  she  obtained  from  our  ambassa- 
dor at  Paris  a  certificate  of  American  citizenship,  to 
serve  as  a  temporary  protection.  In  order  that  you 
may  comprehend  the  precise  significance  which  this 
step  had  in  that  place  and  at  that  time,  let  me  remind 
you,  that  Helen  Maria  Williams,  her  personal  friend, 
and  the  ward  of  Dr.  Rees  of  cyclopedic  memory,  was 
married  in  the  same  way  to  a  Mr.  Edwards,  then  in 
Paris.  She  was  a  well-known  writer  of  that  period; 
and  we  are  still  indebted  to  her  for  some  of  the  best 
hymns  sung  in  our  churches, — among  them,  that 
well-known  hymn,  beginning,  ''While  thee  I  seek, 
protecting  Power."  But  her  husband  was  worthy  of 
the  trust  she  had  reposed  in  him,  and  she  never 
turned  a  ready  pen  against  the  follies  of  society:  so 
her  character  has  never  stood  in  the  public  stocks. 

It  will  be  impossible  to  consider  Mary's  attach- 
ment to  Imlay  in  any  degree  rational,  if  we  look  only 
at  her  character,  and  keep  out  of  sight  her  peculiar 
personal  history. 

The  dawdling  inefficiency  and  brutal  temper  of  her 
father  had  disgusted  her  alike  with  ''men  of  spirit" 
and  "men  of  straw."  In  her  husband,  she  saw,  as  she 
thought,  a  certain  democratic  manliness;  and  his  dar- 
ing speculations  seemed  to  be  inspired  by  courage 
and  genius.  The  affections  which  had  been  roused 
by  her  admiring  intercourse  with  Fuseli  kindled 
gladly  on  this  new  shrine,  where  no  social  duty,  nor 


94  THE    COLLEGE. 

stern  sense  of  personal  honor,  contended  against  her 
warming  fancy.  For  the  first  time  in  her  life,  she 
found  herself  happy;  and  happiness  gave  her  back 
the  beauty  of  early  youth.  She  was  playful,  gentle, 
sympathetic.  Her  eyes  had  new  brightness,  her 
cheeks  new  color,  and  the  bewitching  tenderness  of 
her  smile  fascinated  the  very  women  who  approached 
her.  She  had  been  married  eighteen  months,  her 
love  braving  all  the  trials  that  must  have  come,  when 
Imlay  left  her  for  London.  She  had  expected  his 
quick  return;  but  delay  followed  delay,  and  Mary 
passed  a  year  with  a  new-born  child,  learning,  by 
slow  and  painful  degrees,  that  she  had  trusted  this 
man  beyond  his  worth.  At  last,  he  sent  for  her  to 
London,  where  his  misconduct  affected  her  mind  to 
such  an  extent,  that  she  twice  attempted  her  own  life, 
and  was  rescued  the  second  time  with  difficulty.  As 
soon  as  she  recovered  from  the  fever  which  had  in- 
duced delirium,  her  native  strength  told  her  what  she 
ought  to  do.  Imlay  had  business  in  Norway,  which 
required  a  confidential  and  judicious  agent.  She 
determined  to  take  this  upon  herself;  and  hoped,  by 
absence  and  success,  to  regain  the  affection  she  had 
lost.  The  man  was,  in  no  sense,  worthy  of  her.  On 
her  return,  she  tried,  for  the  sake  of  their  child,  to 
remain  in  the  same  house  with  him.  It  was  not  pos- 
sible; and,  very  soon,  a  final  separation  took  place. 
It  would  have  taken  place  long  before,  but  that  Imlay 
was  a  man  who  could  not  wholly  escape  from  a  fasci- 
nation he  had  once  felt.     After  he  became  involved  in 


LIVES   THAT   HAVE   MODIFIED    PUBLIC    OPINION.     95 

low  connections,  he  could  never  re-enter  her  presence, 
without  resuming,  for  the  time,  the  sympathetic  deli- 
cacy befitting  her  lover.  During  all  this  time,  Mary 
had  occupied  herself  with  literary  work.  She  never 
spoke  of  Imlay,  and  would  allow  no  one  to  blame 
him  in  her  presence.  Conscious  of  her  own  upright 
intentions,  it  must  have  been  no  small  mortification  to 
find  her  insight  and  generosity  baffled.  She  felt  that 
she  was  herself  to  blame  for  having  placed  an  impul- 
sive man  in  a  position  to  which  he  was  wholly  une- 
qual. She  was  everywhere  received  and  treated  as 
a  married  woman,  and  lost  none  of  the  respect  and 
afifection  she  had  well  deserved.  In  April,  1797,  she 
was  married  to  Godwin,  the  author  of  "St.  Leon;" 
and  this  marriage  deprived  her  of  two  new  friends, 
whom  she  held  very  dear.  Godwin  was  so  artless, 
that  he  imagined  his  wife's  social  position  would  be 
improved  by  an  honorable  marriage;  but  it  obliged 
Mrs.  Inchbald  and  Mrs.  Siddons  to  admit  that  the 
nature  of  her  marriage  to  Imlay  allowed  her  to  take 
her  divorce  into  her  own  hands. 

Wonderful  inconsistency  of  society,  which,  having 
interpreted  truly  her  upright  nature  through  years  of 
desertion,  now  condemned  her, — whether  for  her  first 
wrong  step,  for  assuming  her  own  divorce,  or  for 
loving  a  man  of  undoubted  probity,  who  could  tell? 
A  short  year  of  undisturbed  happiness  followed,  when 
the  birth  of  their  only  child — the  late  Mrs.  Shelley 
— suddenly  put  an  end  to  her  life. 

A  beautiful  memorial  survives  her,  in  these  words 


96  THE    COLLEGE. 

of  her  husband.  ''This  light/'  he  says,  ''was  lent  me 
for  a  very  little  while,  and  it  is  now  extinguished  for 
ever.  The  strength  of  Mary's  mind  lay  in  her  intuition. 
In  a  robust  and  unwavering  judgment  of  this  sort, 
there  is  a  kind  of  witchcraft.  When  it  decides  justly, 
it  produces  a  responsive  vibration  in  every  ingenuous 
mind.  In  this  sense,  my  oscillation  and  scepticism 
were  often  fixed  by  her  boldness."  I  am  very  well 
aware  how  much  courage  is  required  of  any  woman 
who  shall  seem  to  defend  Mary  Godwin  from  the 
popular  conception  of  her.  I  know  that  the  woman 
should  herself  be  spotless  who  would  attempt  to  rec- 
tify that  conception,  yet  two  circumstances  seem  to 
compel  explanation.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  no 
question,  that  if  the  views  of  woman  which  are  now 
beginning  to  move  society  originated  with  her  schol- 
arly, republican  friend,  Mrs.  Catharine  Macauley, 
yet  the  fire  and  eloquence  of  Mary's  own  words  were 
needed  to  give  them  currency.  Society  has  been  just 
so  far  as  this,  that  it  has  identified  her  with  the  sub- 
ject of  "Woman's  Rights;"  and  all  of  us  who  are 
carried  forward  by  a  momentum  which  she  imparted, 
must  desire  to  understand  the  nature  of  the  impulse 
which  controls  us. 

In  the  second  place,  Godwin's  short  Life  of  her  has 
been  long  out  of  print,  and  has  now  become  very 
rare;  and  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  a  single  en- 
cyclopaedia or  biographical  dictionary  which  gives  the 
facts  correctly.  Turn  to  them,  and  you  will  find  that 
Mary  Wollstonecraft  had  a  criminal  but  fruitless  at- 


LIVES   THAT    HAVE    MODIFIED    PUBLIC    OPINION.     97 

tachment  for  Fuseli;  that  she  formed  another,  of  the 
same  kind,  for  an  American,  who  deserted  her.  I  brand 
these  statements  as  maUcious  falsehoods,  carelessly 
repeated  now  that  they  have  been  long  exploded: 
and,  as  I  write  these  statements,  the  tears  rush  to  my 
eyes;  for  where  are  the  descendants  of  the  brothers 
and  sisters  whom  she  reared?  where  are  the  kindred 
of  Fanny  Blood  and  John  Hunter,  whose  lives  her 
generous  efforts  gladdened?  Nay,  might  not  one 
man  of  the  drowning  crew  she  forced  the  captain  of 
her  ship  to  rescue,  speak  a  noble  word  in  her  behalf? 
I  have  narrated  her  life  with  some  detail,  for  you 
must  understand  the  facts  upon  which  you  pass  judg- 
ment; and  these  details  are  many  of  them  gathered 
from  private  sources. 

To  understand  the  strength  of  the  prejudice  against 
Mary  Wollstonecraft,  you  should  see  that  from  all  the 
autobiographies  of  the  period  her  name  is  excluded; 
as  if  the  friends  of  those  who  had  been  intimate  with 
her  while  living,  would  not  permit  the  association  of 
names  after  death.  I  have  said,  that,  until  her  mar- 
riage to  Godwin,  she  kept  her  place  in  English 
society;  and  women  of  the  most  sensitive  propriety, 
such  as  Mrs.  Siddons  and  Mrs.  Inchbald,  admitted 
her  to  their  intimacy.  How,  then,  did  such  a  prejudice 
grow  up?  It  was  probably  forming  in  the  popular 
mind  while  she  was  happy  in  the  affection  of  her 
friends;  and,  the  moment  they  found  it  conventionally 
needful  to  sacrifice  her,  the  outbreak  was  unrestrained. 
In  the  first  place,  she  was  an  ardent  republican;  a 
11 


9o       .  THE    COLLEGE. 

thing  no  less  antagonistic  to  English  feeling  in  her 
day,  than  we  have  seen  it  prove  in  ours.  In  the 
second,  she  was  a  Unitarian;  and  Unitarians  were 
radicals  in  politics  as  well  as  in  religion.  In  the  third 
place,  being  a  republican,  and  a  resident  of  Paris  in 
its  troubled  times,  she  was  supposed  to  share  the 
disorder  of  its  morals;  an  impression  which  her  at- 
tempted suicides  no  doubt  confirmed. 

We  shall  not  share  in  this  country  in  any  prejudice 
which  republicanism  or  Unitarianism  excited.  We 
are,  I  trust,  ready  to  admit  that  an  attempt  at  suicide 
could  only  come  with  delirium,  for  which  she  would 
be  as  free  from  responsibility  as  for  a  typhoid  fever 
or  an  Asiatic  cholera.  What  we  have  to  do,  then,  is 
to  understand  her  relation  to  the  laws  of  marriage, 
and  to  see  how  far  her  second  marriage  can  be  justi- 
fied. When  she  met  Imlay  at  Paris,  I  do  not  think 
she  had  ever  considered  the  social  bearing  of  these 
laws,  except  so  far  as  her  mother's  experience  had 
pained  her.  That  experience  made  her  willing  to  do 
what  other  women  about  her  were  doing,  with  no  bad 
result  that  she  could  see,  to  keep  herself  free  from 
pecuniary  entanglement.  In  one  way,  this  was  pru- 
dent; in  an  other  way,  it  was  extremely  imprudent; 
and  the  imprudence  touched  a  more  vital  point  than 
the  prudence :  but  that  it  was  never  considered  crimi- 
nal by  wise  and  candid  judges,  that  she  was  never 
compromised  in  any  relation  up  to  this,  the  intimacies 
we  have  recorded  prove.  Had  she  been  a  weak,  im,' 
moral  woman,  she  would  have  continued  to  live  with 


LIVES   THAT   HAVE   MODIFIED   PUBLIC    OPINION.     99 

Imlay  for  her  child's  sake,  but  availing  herself  of 
the  shelter  of  a  Connection  from  which  she  recoiled. 
At  this  moment,  she  wrote  to  her  husband,  "Your 
reputation  shall  not  suffer.  I  shall  never  have  a  con- 
fidant. I  am  content  with  the  approbation  of  my 
own  mind;  and,  if  there  be  a  Searcher  of  hearts,  mine 
will  not  be  rejected."  And  again:  ''My  child  may 
have  reason  to  blush  for  her  mother's  want  of  pru- 
dence; but  she  shall  never  despise  me."  These  are 
not  the  words  of  a  weak  or  irreligious  woman.  So 
far,  then,  all  was  well,  except  that  society  had  no 
efficient  outlawry  for  the  man  who  had  deserted  her. 
She  still  occasionally  met  him,  but  bore  the  unex- 
pected trial,  when  it  came,  with  dignity  and  sweetness. 
When  Godwin  sought  her  in  marriage,  he  knew,  of 
course,  that  no  legal  ties  bound  her.  Mary  saw  no 
harm  in  using  the  liberty  that  remained  to  her. 
"Why  could  she  not  have  remained  single?"  said 
the  world;  but  had  the  world  been  so  just  and  kind 
to  her,  that  we  could  expect  her  to  resist  the  influence 
of  a  generous  and  courageous  love?  Had  she'  lived 
in  this  country,  and  been  divorced  by  the  laws  of 
Indiana,  society  would  have  been  silent;  but  the  real 
evil  would  have  been  the  same. 

"Never  did  there  exist  a  woman,"  said  her  hus- 
band, "who  might  with  less  fear  expose  her  actions, 
and  call  upon  the  universe  to  judge  them."  I  be- 
lieve this  to  be  true  so  far  as  her  own  relations  were 
concerned;  and  I  believe,  that,  by  her  second  mar- 
riage, she  meant  to  exercise  a  right  of  protest  against 


100  THE    COLLEGE. 

existing  laws,  which  two  of  the  most  gifted  children 
of  the  nineteenth  century  have  exercised  again  in  our 
own  time  with  emphasis.  It  requires  a  philosophic 
mind  to  see  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  the 
state:  heroic,  indeed,  is  the  spirit  which,  perceiving  it, 
braves  the  common  expectation  by  a  defiant  life.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  by  no  prejudice  that  we  demand 
this  account  of  each  person's  private  affairs.  It  is 
a  demand  born  of  an  ill-defined,  dimly  entertained, 
but  still  a  just  idea  of  the  relations  of  God,  the 
family,  and  the  state.  I  ought  not  to  say  so  much, 
without  adding  that  no  one  in  this  country  can  ade- 
quately judge  of  the  pressure  of  the  marriage  laws 
as  they  still  exist  in  England.  What  is  resisted,  is, 
in  most  instances,  what  no  American  woman  would 
be  expected  to  bear;  but  for  England,  as  for  this 
country,  I  rest  in  tb\e  confident  hope  that  a  right 
adjustment  of  woman's  relation  to  society  will 
change  healthfully  all  existing  legislation.  Such  leg- 
islation as  that  of  Indiana  does  not  seem  to  me  an 
advance,  although  it  may  have  been  demanded  by 
an  advancing  public  sentiment. 

I  have  said  this  honestly,  with  a  tender  pity  in  my 
heart,  to  clear  the  memory  of  a  much-abused  woman. 
Does  any  one  ask  me  if  I  would  justify  the  position  in 
which  she  stood?  I  answer,  frankly.  No.  We  do  not 
live  to  ourselves  alone;  and  if  we  are  ever  tempted 
to  take  a  step  against  the  moral  convictions  of  the 
world,  believing  that  we  can  do  as  we  will  with  our 
own,  one  would  think  the  possibility  that  children 


LIVES   THAT    HAVE    MODIFIED 'JJUBLJ^,  OPlNIONi  ^  It!^!' 

may  be  born  to  inherit  the  obloquy  we  excite,  with- 
out themselves  deserving  it,  would  be  enough  to  deter 
any  right-minded  woman.  No  love  or  care,  or  abject 
self-sacrifice,  can  reconcile  a  child  to  the  stain  of  ille- 
gitimacy. ''What  does  the  Lord  thy  God  require  of 
thee?" — ''To  do  justly,  love  mercy,  and  walk  hum- 
bly." It  is  not  walking  humbly  to  set  up  our  own 
conception  of  fitness  against  the  accumulated  expe- 
rience of  mankind.  Still  farther:  It  is  of  very  little 
importance  what  others  may  think  of  us,  when  we 
are  acting  conscientiously;  but  what  we  think  of 
others,  our  own  mood  of  mind  towards  God  and 
man, — that  is  of  the  very  greatest. 

The  influence  of  the  "Vindication  of  the  Rights 
of  Woman"  was  greatly  aided  by  the  efforts  of  Mr. 
Day,  and  of  Maria  Edgeworth,  whose  literary  career 
began  about  the  time  of  its  publication.  Following 
closely  upon  these,  and  so  nearly  parallel  in  effort, 
and  equal  in  varied  ability,  that  we  hardly  know  in 
what  order  to  name  them,  are  Lady  Morgan,  Harriet 
Martineau,  and  Mrs.  Jameson.  Sydney  Morgan,  sit- 
ting alone  at  the  age  of  fourscore  in  her  tiny  house  at 
Dublin,  filled  like  a  museum  with  the  accumulation 
of  her  years  of  travel,  projecting  the  publication  of  her 
last  work,  was  lately,  like  Mrs.  Somerville  at  Florence, 
a  pensioner  of  Queen  Victoria.  But,  from  the  hour 
of  her  first  appearance  as  the  author  of  the  "Wild 
Irish  Girl,"  she  has  exercised  a  generous  womanly 
influence.  Under  the  disguise  of  novels,  books  of 
travel,  and  the  like,  she  has  published  an  immense 


i02  THE   COLLEGE. 

number  of  volumes,  filled  with  information  which 
may  be  a  little  too  crowded  for  convenience,  but 
always  accurate,  always  original,  and,  for  the  most 
part,  received  from  historic  sources,  in  personal  in- 
tercourse. Her  warm  hatred  of  tyranny  made  friends 
for  her,  wherever  she  went.  When  a  young  girl,  she 
took  up  the  cause  of  her  own  country  with  a  vehe- 
mence which  won  the  liberal  party,  and  made  her 
fashionable  before  she  was  approved.  ''The  wild 
Irish  girl''  and  her  harp  were  essential  to  the  success 
of  every  entertainment;  and  invitations  lay  two  or 
three  deep  for  every  evening.  She  entered  society 
with  beauty,  wit,  and  prestige.  She  might  have  done 
what  she  would.  She  chose  to  remain  faithful  to  un- 
popular opinions.  After  her  marriage  to  Sir  Charles 
Morgan,  they  went,  for  economical  reasons,  to  the 
Continent,  where  they  eventually  spent  many  years. 
In  France,  Lafayette,  S6gur,  Denon,  and  L'Aguisseau 
were  her  intimate  friends;  and  in  the  salon  of  the 
Princess  de  Salm  she  was  always  a  welcome  guest. 
In  Germany,  Flanders,  and  Italy,  not  only  the  liberal 
youth,  but  the  learned  eld,  crowded  her  apartments, 
gave  her  minute  information,  and  became  devoted 
cicerones.  The  friendship  of  cardinals  and  princes 
did  not  dim  her  natural  democracy  of  view;  and  her 
last  words  were  as  true  to  liberty  as  her  first.  Her 
works  on  France  and  Italy  were  proscribed  in  both 
countries;  yet  ''Young  France"  and  "Young  Italy" 
contrived  to  obtain  and  read  them.  She  came  into 
fashion  in  Paris  whenever  the  Bourbons  went  out; 


LIVES    THAT    HAVE    MODIFIED    PUBLIC    OPINION.     103 

and,  when  she  dined  with  Rothschild,  his  famous 
cook  acknowledged  her  friendship  for  the  people  in 
autographs  of  spun  sugar!  *'We  shall  meet  at  the 
breakfast  of  the  Austrian  ambassador/'  said  a  Parisian 
fop,  as  he  made  his  bow.  ''Not  we,"  she  laughed 
in  answer:  ''it  would  be  as  much  as  his  place  is 
worth  to  ask  me."  Wherever  she  went,  and  what- 
ever she  did,  her  ears  were  always  open  to  a  woman's 
name;  and,  with  the  most  loyal  interest,  she  gathered 
up  every  thing  relating  to  their  lives,  their  influ- 
ence, and  their  disabilities.  What  she  was  told  as 
gossip,  was  retained,  studied  out,  and  digested,  before, 
vvith  the  piquancy  of  a  French  woman  and  the 
warmth  of  an  Irish,  it  was  given  to  the  world.  The 
first  two  volumes  of  her  "History  of  Woman"  do  not 
touch  a  period  of  universal  interest;  but,  had  she  been 
able  to  complete  the  work,  it  would  have  exhausted 
the  subject.  In  the  B^guine,  she  says:  "Women 
meddle  with  politics  as  well  as  tent-stitch,  and,  like 
Madame  de  Maintenon,  bring  their  work-bags  to  the 
Privy  Council,  and  direct  the  affairs  of  Europe  while 
they  trace  patterns  for  footstools.  The  influence  of 
woman  will  ever  be  exercised  directly  or  indirectly 
in  all  good  or  evil.  It  is  a  part  of  the  scheme 
of  nature.  Give  her,  then,  such  light  as  she  is 
capable  of  receiving.  Educate  her,  whatever  her 
station,  for  taking  her  part  in  society.  Her  ignorance 
has  often  made  her  interference  fatal;  her  knowl- 
edge, never."  The  cordial  sympathy  of  her  husband 
has  made  Lady  Morgan's  life  beautiful.     His  legal 


104  THE    COLLEGE. 

knowledge  and  antiquarian  taste  added  their  own 
charm  to  whatever  she  undertook. 

How  great  and  worthy  is  the  literary  position  of 
Harriet  Martineau,  we  all  know.  Its  retro-action- 
ary  influence  in  favor  of  the  ability  and  freedom 
of  her  sex  is  what  we  are  to  indicate  here.  For 
whatever  immediate  purpose  she  writes,  her  words 
bear  indirectly  on  the  widest  womanly  emancipa- 
tion. May  this  remark  stimulate  your  curiosity, 
and  keep  you  on  the  alert  for  pregnant  sentences! 
Such  sentences  tell  more  of  the  progress  of  human 
thought  than  some  of  us  suspect:  they  indicate  its 
natural,  habitual  poise.  '^  Women  especially,"  she 
writes,  ''should  be  allowed  the  free  use  of  whatever 
strength  their  Maker  has  seen  fit  to  give  them.  It 
is  essential  to  the  virtue  of  society,  that  they  should 
be  allowed  the  freest  moral  action,  unfettered  by 
ignorance,  and  unintimidated  by  authority;  for  it  is 
an  unquestioned  and  unquestionable  fact,  that,  if 
women  were  not  weak,  men  would  not  be  wicked, 
and  that,  if  women  were  bravely  pure,  there  would 
be  an  end  of  the  dastardly  tyranny  of  licentiousness." 
This  passage  will  have  all  the  more  power  over  ob- 
servant readers,  because  it  occurs  unexpectedly,  and 
marks  the  opportunity  seized  to  speak  a  necessary 
if  unwelcome  truth. 

What  noble  service  Mrs.  Jameson  rendered  in 
the  field  of  art  or  letters  did  not  leave  her  indiffer- 
ent to  the  interests  of  her  sex.  She  was  placed  in 
circumstances    to    make    her    see    quickly    and    feel 


LIVES   THAT    HAVE    MODIFIED    PUBLIC   OPINION.     105 

deeply  all  that  relates  to  womanly  position  and 
development.  An  early  martyr  to  the  prejudices  of 
society;  married,  I  think  at  sixteen,  to  a  man  far 
beyond  her  own  rank  in  life,  who  left  her  at  the 
altar, — she  bore  the  title  of  wife,  and  led  the  life 
of  a  celibate:  but  her  first  word  for  her  sex  was  as 
strong  and  true  as  her  last,  while  her  own  path  lay 
between  lines  of  living  fire.  Only  lately  did  we 
hear  of  her  as  a  lecturer  and  reformer;  but,  nearly 
thirty  years  ago,  we  might  have  cut  from  her  pages 
the  following  words:  ''We  are  told  openly  by 
moralists  and  politicians,  that  it  is  for  the  general 
good  of  society,  nay,  an  absolute  necessity,  that  one- 
fifth  part  of  the  female  sex  should  be  condemned 
as  the  legitimate  prey  of  the  other,  predoomed  to 
die  in  reprobation  in  the  streets,  in  hospitals,  that 
the  virtue  of  the  rest  may  be  preserved,  and  the  pride 
and  the  passions  of  men  both  satisfied.  But  I  have 
a  bitter  pleasure  in  thinking,  that  this  most  base  and 
cruel  conventional  law  is  avenged  upon  those  who 
made  and  uphold  it;  that  here  the  sacrifice  of  a 
certain  number  of  one  sex  to  the  permitted  license 
of  the  other  is  no  general  good,  but  a  general  curse, 
a  very  ulcer  in  the  bosom  of  society."  Can  you 
guess  how  brave  and  pure  a  woman  was  needed 
to  write  those  words?  All  the  indirect  tendency  of 
her  works  is  in  keeping  with  them;  and  we  recognize 
the  same  voice,  as  she  said  in  a  later  lecture: — 

''When    female    nurses    were   to    be    sent    to    the 
Crimea,  there  was  to  be  met  the  mockery  of  the 


106  THE    COLLEGE. 

light-minded,  the  atrocious  innuendoes  of  the  disso- 
lute, the  sneers  of  the  ignorant,  and  the  scepticism 
of  the  cold.  I  have  seen  men  who  deem  it  quite  a 
natural  and  proper  thing  that  women — some  women 
at  least — should  lead  the  life  of  a  courtesan,  put 
on  a  look  of  offended  propriety  at  the  idea  of  a 
woman  nursing  a  sick  soldier.  I  have  seen  men — 
ay,  and  women  too — who  deem  it  a  matter  of  course 
that  our  streets  should  be  haunted  by  contagious  \ice, 
disgusted  at  the  idea  of  women  turning  apothecaries 
and  hdpitalieres.  And,  worse  than  all,  I  have  heard 
men — and  women  too — who  acknowledge  the  gos- 
pel of  Christ,  who  call  themselves  by  his  name,  who 
believe  in  his  mission  of  mercy,  disputing  about  the 
exact  shade  of  orthodoxy  in  a  woman  who  had  offered 
up  every  faculty  of  her  being  at  the  feet  of  the  Re- 
deemer." * 

Remember  that  these  words  were  spoken  where 
they  belonged,  in  the  very  heart  of  Belgravia,  to  the 
very  people  who  deserved  them,  and  respect  the  brave 
purity  which  compelled  lips  as  well  as  pen  to  utter- 
ance. It  would  scarce  be  honest  not  to  say,  in  this 
connection,  that  Mrs.  Jameson  took  some  pains,  so 
long  as  she  lived,  to  separate  herself  from  the  Ameri- 
can Woman's-Rights  party — a  party,  it  may  be,  only 
represented  to  her  by  the  vulgar  pretension  of  trav- 
elling Bloomers.  Some  of  us  take  comfort  in  remem- 
bering how  much  more  easily  the  misrepresentations 

*  In  allusion  to  the  Unitarianism  of  Florence  Nightingale. 


LIVES   THAT   HAVE    MODIFIED    PUBLIC   OPINION.     107 

of  the  press,  or  the  intrusions  of  unfit  subjects  on 
womanly  discussion,  will  float  across  the  wide  Atlan- 
tic, than  our  weightier  works.  When  she  said,  in  the 
same  breath,  concerning  a  decree  of  the  Frenqh  Con- 
sulate, "I  confess,  I  should  like  to  see  a^ decree  of  our 
Parliament  beginning  with  a  recognition  that  women 
do  exist  as  a  part  of  the  community,  whose  responsi- 
bilities are  to  be  acknowledged,  and  whose  capabilities 
are  to  be  made  available,  not  separately,  but  conjointly 
with  those  of  men,"  we  know  that  she  worked  for 
us  and  with  us,  and  forgive  the  want  of  recognition 
in  gratitude  for  the  real  service. 

Mrs.  Gaskell  has  perhaps  done  more  than  any 
woman  of  this  century,  not  confessedly  devoted  to 
our  cause,  to  elevate  the  condition  of  her  sex,  and 
disseminate  liberal  ideas  as  to  their  needs  and  culture. 
The  first  part  of  her  career  was  one  of  those  brilliant 
successes  which  startle  us  into  surprise  and  admira- 
tion. It  was  checked  midway  by  the  publication  of 
her  life  of  Charlotte  Bronte,  the  best  and  noblest  of 
her  works.  Checked,  because  condemned  in  that 
instance  without  a  hearing,  she  could  never  after- 
wards feel  the  elastic  pleasure  which  was  natural  to 
her  in  composing  and  printing;  and,  for  three  long 
years  afterwards,  never  touched  her  pen.  I  would  not 
allude  to  this  subject,  if  every  notice  of  her,  since  her 
death,  had  not  done  so;  repeating  the  old  censure, 
as  a  matter  of  course.  Here  in  America,  we  excul- 
pate her.  The  public  was  wrong,  in  the  first  place 
inasmuch  as  it  has  come  to  demand  biography  before 


108  THE    COLLEGE. 

biography  is  possible.  The  publisher  was  wrong,  in 
the  second;  for  he  ought  to  have  known,  and  could 
easily  have  ascertained,  how  plain  a  statement  the 
English  law  would  permit.  The  public  was  still  fur- 
ther wrong,  when  it  attributed  misapprehension  and 
carelessness  to  a  woman  whom  it  very  well  knew  to 
be  incapable  of  either.  I,  for  one,  shall  never  forgive 
nor  forget  the  officious  censure  given  by  one  who 
must  have  known  that  the  legal  apology  tendered,  in 
Mrs.  Gaskell's  absence,  to  protect  her  pecuniary  inter- 
ests, had  the  unfortunate  effect  to  put  her  in  a  posi- 
tion where  explanation  and  self-defence  were  alike 
impossible.  Mrs.  Gaskell  had  deserved  the  steady 
confidence  of  the  public. 

I  have  kept  till  the  last  the  name  of  Fredrika  Bremer, 
whose  good  fortune  it  was  to  secure  lasting  benefits 
to  her  sex.  God  sent  to  her  early  years  dark  trials 
and  privations.  Her  father's  tyrannical  hand  crushed 
all  power  and  loveliness  out  of  her  life.  At  first,  she 
rebelled  against  her  sufferings;  but,  when  he  died  in 
her  girlhood,  she  was  able  to  see  that  they  lent  strength 
to  her  efforts  for  her  sex.  It  was  the  rumor  of  what 
we  are  doing  in  this  country  for  women  that  first 
drew  her  hither.  It  is  not  the  fashion  for  Miss  Bre- 
mer's friends  fully  to  recognize  her  position  in  this 
respect.  I  owe  my  own  convictions  on  the  subject  of 
suffrage  to  the  reflections  she  awakened.  When  I 
told  her  that  my  mind  was  undecided  on  this  point, 
she  showed  her  disappointment  so  plainly,  that  I 
was  forced  to  reconsider  the  whole  subject.     Miss 


LIVES   THAT    HAVE    MODIFIED    PUBLIC    OPINION.     109 

Bremer  did  not  hurry  her  work:  she  had  a  serene 
confidence  that  she  should  be  permitted  to  finish  what 
she  had  begun.  She  secured  popularity  by  her  cheer- 
ful humor,  her  genuine  feeling,  her  true  appreciation 
of  men,  and  her  insight  into  the  conditions  of  family 
happiness,  before  she  made  any  direct  appeal  against 
existing  laws.  Those  who  will  read  her  novels  thought- 
fully, however,  will  see  that  she  was,  from  the  first, 
intent  upon  making  such  an  effort  possible.  From 
the  beginning,  she  pleaded  for  the  social  independ- 
ence of  wives;  asked  for  them  a  separate  purse; 
showed  that  woman  could  not  even  give  her  love 
freely,  until  she  was  independent  of  him  to  whom  she 
owed  it.  To  a  just  state  of  society,  to  noble  family 
relations,  entire  freedom  is  essential. 

Under  her  influence,  females  had  been  admitted  to 
the  Musical  Academy.  The  directors  of  the  Industrial 
School  at  Stockholm  had  attempted  to  form  a  class, 
and  Professor  Quarnstromm  had  opened  his  classes 
at  the  Academy  of  Fine  Arts  to  women.  Cheered 
by  her  sympathy,  a  female  surgeon  had  sustained  her- 
self in  Stockholm;  and  Bishop  Argardh  indorsed  the 
darkest  picture  she  had  ever  drawn,  when  he  pleaded 
with  the  state  to  establish  a  girls'-school.  It  was  at 
this  juncture  that  Miss  Bremer  published  ''Hertha." 
This  book  was  a  direct  blow  aimed  at  the  laws  of 
Sweden  concerning  women.  By  this  time,  she  had 
herself  become,  in  Sweden,  what  we  might  fitly  call  a 
''crowned  head."  She  was  everywhere  treated  with 
distinction;  and  her  sudden  appearance  in  any  place 


110  THE    COLLEGE. 

was  greeted  with  the  enthusiasm  usually  shown  by- 
such  nations  only  to  their  princes.  She  said  of  her 
new  book.  ''I  have  poured  into  it  more  of  my  heart 
and  life  than  into  any  thing  which  I  have  ever  writ- 
ten;" and  verily  she  had  her  reward.  She  was  at 
Rome,  two  years  after, — in  1858, — when  the  glad 
news  reached  her,  that  King  Oscar,  at  the  opening  of 
the  Diet,  had  proposed  a  bill  entitling  women  to  hold 
independent  property  at  the  age  of  twenty-five.  All 
Sweden  had  read  the  book  which  moved  the  heart  of 
the  king;  and  the  assembled  representatives  rent  the 
air  with  their  acclamations. 

In  the  following  spring,  the  old  University  town  of 
Upsala,  where  her  friend  Bergfalk  occupies  a  chair, 
granted  the  right  of  suffrage  to  fifty  women  owning 
real  estate,  and  to  thirty-one  doing  business  on  their 
own  account.  The  representative  whom  their  votes 
went  to  elect  was  to  sit  in  the  House  of  Burgesses. 
Miss  Bremer  was  not  ashamed  to  shed  happy  tears 
when  this  news  reached  her.  If  she  had  ever  re- 
proached Providence  with  the  bitter  sorrow  of  her 
early  years,  she  was  penitent  and  grateful  now.  Then 
was  fulfilled  the  prophecy  which  she  had  uttered,  as  she 
left  our  shores,  ''The  nation  which  was  first  among 
Scandinavians  to  liberate  its  slaves,  shall  also  be  the 
first  to  emancipate  its  women." 

This  is  not  the  place  to  unfold  the  delicate  sheaths 
of  meaning  with  which  flower-like  Robert  Browning 
invests  his  thought;  but  the  man  who  wrote  the 
''Blot  on  the  'Scutcheon,  "and  the  exquisite  sketch 


LIVES    THAT    HAVE    MODIFIED    PUBLIC    OPINION.     Ill 

of  "Pippa  Passes,"  has  done  such  justice  to  the  sex, 
and  so  far  helped  the  cause  of  right  feeling  and  right 
thinking  in  respect  to  some  of  the  most  delicate 
problems  that  concern  it,  that  we  are  compelled  to 
speak  of  him  gratefully.  His  marriage,  too,  is  still 
fragrant ;  a  full-fruited  flower  of  promise  to  the  world, 
which  makes  us  see  the  best  things  possible,  and  be- 
lieve that  the  time  is  coming  when  man  and  woman 
will  not  seldom  stand  before  the  altar  as  equal  and 
individual,  yet  scarcely  one.  To  EUzabeth  Brown- 
ing, to  whom  was  given  in  her  life  that  place  of 
pre-eminence  among  women  which  Shakspere  must 
always  hold  among  men,  we  owe  grateful  thanks, 
for  the  scholarly  achievement,  the  conscientious  study, 
the  womanly  zeal,  which  distinguished  all  her  work. 
When  theology  sometimes  wrestled  with  poetry  in 
her  speech,  we  translated  it  into  a  freer  tongue,  and 
thanked  her  all  the  same.  In  ''Aurora  Leigh"  she 
stabbed  every  conventional  falsity  to  the  heart,  and 
held  the  ear  tenaciously  till  she  had  delivered  all  her 
oracle. 

"I  read  a  score  of  books  on  womanhood, 
To  prove,  if  women  'do  not  think  at  all, 
They  may  teach  thinking, — books  demonstrating 
Their  right  of  comprehending  husband's  talk, 
When  not  too  deep,  and  even  of  answering." 

"I  perceive 
The  headache  is  too  noble  for  my  sex: 
You  think  the  heartache  would  sound  decenter." 

"Such  praise 
As  men  give  women,  when  they  judge  a  book, 
Not  as  mere  work,  but  as  mere  woman's  work, 
Expressing  the  comparative  respect, 
Which  means  the  absolute  scorn." 


112  THE    COLLEGE. 

The  woman  who  wrote  these  words  counsels  us  from 

her  grave;  and,  taught  by  her,  we  do  not  hesitate  to 

say,— 

''Deal  with  us  nobly,  women  though  we  be, 
And  honor  us  with  truth,  if  not  with  praise." 

Yet  these  were  all  to  a  certain  extent  indirect  in- 
fluences. Can  I  utter  without  trembling  the  two 
names  which  sit  upon  the  thrones  of  female  power 
in  the  Old  World  and  the  New?  I  mean  Charlotte 
Bronte  and  Margaret  Fuller.  I  wish  I  could  confer  a 
proper  emphasis  upon  my  words,  when  I  say  that  the 
publication  of  '^Jane  Eyre"  formed  the  chief  era  in 
the  literature  of  women  since  that  literature  began. 
Into  it  was  compressed  all  the  feeling  and  experience 
of  a  very  remarkable  life, — feeling  and  experience  en- 
tertained without  the  smallest  sense  of  responsi- 
bility to  the  conventional  world.  The  life  of  the 
author  touched  the  restrictions  of  society,  as  the 
spheral  curves  touch  the  tangents  which  square  them, 
so  slightly  as  never  to  impair  its  wonderful  individu- 
ality. Who  would  not  seek  a  wife  like  Jane  Eyre? 
Who  does  not  rejoice  in  the  smallest  detail  of  that 
sparkling  and  varied  courtship?  Think  of  those 
words  of  Rochester,  when,  holding  her  with  the  grasp 
of  a  madman,  he  says,  ''Never  was  any  thing  at 
once  so  frail  and  so  indomitable.  A  mere  reed  she 
feels  in  my  hand.  I  could  bend  her  with  my  finger 
and  thumb.  And  what  good  would  it  do,  if  I  bent, 
if  I  uptore,  if  I  crushed  her?  Consider  that  eye; 
consider  the  wild,   resolute,   free  thing  looking  out 


LIVES   THAT    HAVE    MODIFIED    PUBLIC   OPINION.     113 

of  it,  defying  me  with  more  than  courage, — with 
a  stern  triumph.  Whatever  I  do  with  its  cage, 
I  cannot  get  at  it,  the  savage  beautiful  creature! 
If  I  tear,  if  I  rend  the  slight  prison,  my  outrage 
will  only  set  the  captive  free.  Conqueror  I  might 
be  of  the  house;  but  the  inmate  would  escape  to 
heaven,  before  I  could  call  myself  possessor  of  its 
clay  dwelling-place.  And  it  is  you,  spirit,  with  will 
and  energy  and  virtue  and  purity,  that  I  want,  not 
alone  your  brittle  frame.'' 

And  from  what  literature,  of  ancient  or  modern 
growth,  shall  we  match  Jane's  answer,  when  passion 
presses,  crying,  ''Who  in  the  world  cares  for  you?  or 
who  will  be  injured  by  what  you  do?" 

"I  care  for  myself,''  is  the  indomitable  reply:  ''the 
more  solitary,  the  more  friendless,  the  more  unsus- 
tained,  I  am,  the  more  I  will  respect  myself.  I  will 
keep  the  law  given  by  God,  sanctioned  by  man.  I 
will  hold  by  the  principles  received  by  me  when  I 
was  sane,  and  not  mad,  as  I  am  now.  Laws  and 
principles  are  not  for  the  times  when  there  is  no 
temptation.  They  are  for  such  moments  as  this, 
when  body  and  soul  rise  in  mutiny  against  rigor. 
Stringent  are  they?  Inviolate  they  shall  be.  If,  at 
my  individual  convenience,  I  might  break  them,  what 
would  be  their  worth?  They  have  a  worth,  so  I  have 
always  believed;  and,  if  I  cannot  believe  it  now,  it  is 
because  I  am  insane,  with  my  veins  running  fire, 
and  my  heart  beating  faster  than  I  can  count.  Pre- 
conceived opinions,  foregone  determinations,  are  all 

12 


114  THE    COLLEGE. 

I  have  at  this  hour  to  stand  by.     There  I  plant  my 
foot!" 

Other  women  have  been  brave  and  pure,  but  this 
woman  was  an  Abdiel.  Never  had  she  faltered  in  her 
life,  never  encountered  a  sham  but  to  crush  it.  We 
did  not  know  what  freedom  meant,  till  we  had  this 
book.  Its  advent  was  an  era,  not  merely  in  the  liter- 
ature, but  in  the  life,  of  woman.  Its  welcome,  so 
profound,  so  stirring,  betrayed  the  secrets  of  womanly 
nature.  Do  you  remember  how  you  sat  and  dis- 
cussed this  book,  far  into  the  night? — how  you 
wondered  whether  man  or  woman  wrote  it? — how 
the  women  it  enfranchised  looked  their  scorn  when 
you  suggested  the  first  possibility? — how  your  tem- 
per and  feeling,  and  sense  of  justice,  were  roused  by  it? 
All  this  was  because  a  life  resolute  and  free  poured 
itself  out  between  those  covers.  A  woman  delicate, 
cleanly,  quaint,  secured  the  polished  purity  of  every 
page.  Will  you  start,  if  I  ask  you  who  ever  stated 
the  Woman's-Rights'  argument  with  the  serene  force 
of  the  little  lace-mender  in  the  ''Professor"?  Do  you 
not  envy  her  and  her  husband  the  happy  English 
home  secured  by  their  united  labors?  Ah!  when 
she  gave  us  later  that  exquisite  miniature  of  her 
sister  Emily  which  she  called  ''Shirley,"  that  noble 
bit  of  Rubens  color  which  she  named  "Villette,"  the 
same  flood  of  womanly  thought  and  feeUng  poured 
through  the  prayer, — the  same  flood,  though  we  no 
longer  started  as  when  we  first  heard  society's  signal 
gun,  and  saw  her  whole  fleet  hoist  the  flag  of  dis- 


LIVES    THAT    HAVE    MODIFIED    PUBLIC    OPINION.     115 

tress.  Women  ought  to  buy  that  old  stone  house 
upon  the  hillside,  set  in  among  the  tombs,  and  framed 
in  purple  heather.  The  lives  which  began  and  ended 
there  have  hedged  it  in  with  laurels.  Read  this  life 
and  1±iese  works,  and  learn  what  fortunes  hang  upon 
a  noble  living.  Read  them,  that  you  may  learn  how 
to  cheer  the  world  with  what  is  natural  and  dignified, 
to  do  your  Master's  work,  regardless  of  narrow  criti- 
cism or  still  disdain.  The  host  of  imitators  who 
stand  about  Charlotte  Bronte's  still-open  grave  are  the 
best  tribute  to  the  power  that  went  out  from  her, — 
a  power  tempered  by  the  sweetest  personal  graces,  by 
a  housekeeping  delicate  and  pure  and  tasteful,  which 
never  lets  us  dream  of  Jane  in  her  school  at  Morton, 
of  Shirley  in  her  peach-room  parlor,  of  the  lace- 
mender  at  the  professor's  desk,  or  Lucy  Snowe  in  the 
first  class  of  Paul  Emanuel,  as  otherwise  than  bril- 
liant in  cleanliness  and  order.  I  turn  reluctantly  from 
a  life  so  well  known,  and  now,  thank  God,  beginning 
to  be  so  well  understood. 

I  do  not  treat  of  Margaret  Fuller  as  a  literary 
power;  for,  whatever  may  be  her  rank  in  this  respect, 
she  does  not  exert  a  tithe  of  the  influence  in  this  way, 
which  attaches  to  the  idea  of  her  as  a  person,  to  her- 
self as  the  centre  of  the  radiant  and  shining  group  of 
women  who  were  known  as  ''Margaret's  friends." 

Her  ''Woman  in  the  Nineteenth  Century"  is  a 
scholarly,  refined,  and  noble  plea  for  the  freedom  of 
her  sex.  In  point  of  ability,  no  book  can  be  named 
with  it,  if  we  except  that  of  Madame  d'H^ricourt. 


116  THE    COLLEGE. 

It  has  an  advantage  over  that  of  Mary  Wollstone- 
craft,  in  being,  so  far  as  the  author  could  make  it,  a 
complete  statement;  but  it  is  written  so  much  more 
from  the  stand-point  of  thought  and  feeling,  that  it 
has  had  a  far  more  limited  influence.  There  is  not  a 
word  in  the  '' Vindication"  which  the  most  simple 
might  not  read  as  he  ran,  and,  reading,  understand; 
but  much  of  the  '^ Nineteenth  Century"  depends 
upon  a  critical  scholarship,  and  an  evasive  delicacy 
of  sentiment  and  thought,  which  elude  the  common 
grasp.  Precious  passages  have  become  axioms.  ''Let 
her  be  a  sea-captain,  if  she  will,"  has  a  power  in  both 
hemispheres;  for  it  has  been  justified  to  learned  and 
simple,  by  Captain  Betsy,  of  the  Scotch  schooner, 
''Cleotus,"  and  the  sweet  and  noble  woman  who  so 
lately  carried  an  American  ship  round  Cape  Horn. 
The  life  of  Margaret  Fuller  is  in  everybody's  hands; 
but  not  even  Boston  women  appreciate  her  personal 
influence.  Who  else  could  be  expected  to  understand 
it?  Her  very  existence  was  a  stimulus  to  endeavor; 
and  hundreds  of  women  become  practical  "Exalta- 
das,"  because  they  saw  the  position  she  was  permitted 
to  hold.  "I  always  know  a  Boston  woman,"  said  a 
rough  German  miner  to  me,  beyond  Lake  Huron: 
''she  always  has  Margaret  Fuller's  stamp  upon  her;" 
and  I  felt  that  his  words  were  true.  We  have  missed 
her  sadly  since  she  was  taken  from  us.  Ever  memo- 
rable will  be  the  "Life  and  Writings,"  which  revive 
our  memories  better  than  they  satisfy  our  demands, 
"It  will  be  seen,"  she  once  wrote,  "that  my  youth 


LIVES   THAT   HAVE    MODIFIED    PUBLIC   OPINION.     117 

was  not  unfriended,  since  those  great  minds  came  to 
me  in  kindness."  We  have  not  been  unfriended 
either,  since  she  was  permitted  to  come  to  us.  If  I 
were  to  characterize  her  in  two  words,  it  would  be 
as  ''Truth-teller  and  Truth-compel ler."  She  not  only 
spoke  what  she  thought,  in  her  own  way,  let  it  be 
abrupt  or  gentle,  but  she  compelled  us  to  do  the 
same.  There  was  something  in  her  presence  which 
tore  away  all  disguises:  even  unconscious  pretension 
could  not  bear  it.  We  were  soon  made  to  feel 
whether  we  had  any  right  to  our  own  thoughts. 
*'What  I  especially  admired  in  her,"  says  Dr.  Hedge, 
"was  her  intellectual  sincerity.  Her  judgments  took 
no  bribe  from  her  sex  or  sphere,  nor  from  custom  nor 
tradition  nor  caprice.  She  valued  truth  supremely, 
both  for  herself  and  others.  The  question  with  her 
was,  not  what  should  be  believed,  nor  what  ought  to  be 
true,  but  what  is  true.  Her  'yes'  and  'no'  were 
never  conventional;  and  she  often  amazed  people  by 
a  cool  and  unsuspected  dissent  from  the  common- 
places of  popular  acceptation." 

"Truth-teller  and  Truth-compeller," — the  words 
seem  to  fall  like  the  shadow  of  Omnipotence,  a  noble 
fillet  for  a  woman's  forehead.  What  a  noble  charac- 
ter that  must  have  been,  which  inspired  the  remark 
made  after  her  marriage: — 

"Her  life,  since  she  went  abroad,  is  wholly  un- 
known to  me;  but  I  have  aC  unshaken  trust,  that 
what  Margaret  did  she  can  defend."  An  "unshaken 
trust," — such  words  are  a  challenge  to  all  noble  liv- 


118  ^  THE    COLLEGE.    ^ 

ing.  In  great  and  small  matters,  we  are  told,  she 
was  a  woman  of  her  word,  and  so  gave  those  who 
conversed  with  her  the  unspeakable  comfort  which 
flows  from  plaindealing.  ''I  walk  over  burning 
ploughshares,  and  they  sear  my  feet,  yet  nothing  but 
truth  will  do,"  she  says;  and  again,  in  a  letter  to  a 
friend:  ''My  own  entire  sincerity  in  every  passage  of 
life  gives  me  a  right  to  expect  that  I  shall  be  met  by 
no  unmeaning  phrases  or  attentions." 

I  enlarge  upon  this  trait  of  character,  for  I  think  it 
Margaret's  due.  Everybody  here  knows  her  reputa- 
tion as  a  scholar:  few  know  her  character  as  a 
woman.  In  beautiful  keeping  with  this  trait  was  her 
letter  to  Miss  Martineau,  after  the  publication  of  her 
book  upon  this  country. 

''When  Jouffroy  writes  his  lectures,"  she  says,  "I 
am  not  conversant  with  all  his  topics;  but  I  can 
appreciate  his  lucid  style  and  admirable  method. 
When  Webster  speaks  on  the  currency,  I  do  not  un- 
derstand the  subject;  but  I  do  understand  his  mode 
of  treating  it,  and  can  see  what  a  blaze  of  light  flows 
from  his  torch.  When  Harriet  Martineau  writes 
about  America,  I  often  cannot  test  that  rashness  and 
inaccuracy  of  which  I  hear  so  much;  but  I  can  feel 
that  they  exist.  A  want  of  soundness  and  patient 
investigation  is  found  throughout  the  book;  and  I 
cannot  be  happy  in  it,  because  it  is  not  worthy  of 
my  friend. 

"I  have  thought  it  right  to  say  all  this  to  you,  since 
I  feel  it.     I  have  shrunk  from  the  effort,  for  I  fear  that 


LIVES   THAT   HAVE   MODIFIED    PUBLIC    OPINION.     119 

I  must  lose  you.  If  your  heart  turn  from  me,  I  shall 
still  love  you;  and  I  could  no  more  have  been  happy 
in  your  friendship,  if  I  had  not  spoken  out." 

What  a  noble  pattern  in  that  letter  for  us  all! 
The  electric  power  of  her  womanhood,  which  claimed 
the  inmost  being  of  every  one  with  whom  she  came 
in  contact,  I  can  best  express  in  the  words  of  Em- 
erson : — 

''She  had  found  out  her  own  secret  by  early  com- 
parison, and  knew  what  power  to  draw  confidence, 
what  necessity  to  lead  in  every  circle,  belonged  of 
right  to  her.  She  had  drawn  to  her  every  superior 
young  man  or  woman  she  had  ever  met;  and  whole 
romances  of  life  and  love  had  been  confided,  coun- 
selled, thought,  and  lived  through,  in  her  cognizance 
and  sympathy.  She  extorted  the  secret  of  life  which 
cannot  be  told  without  setting  heart  and  mind  in 
a  glow,  and  thus  she  had  the  best  of  those  she  saw. 
She  lived  in  a  superior  circle;  for  people  suppressed 
all  their  commonplaces  in  her  presence.  Her  mood 
applied  itself  to  the  mood  of  her  companion,  point 
to  point,  in  the  most  limber,  sinuous,  vital  way,  and 
drew  out  the  most  extraordinary  narratives." 

When  we  remember  this  wealth  of  sympathy  and 
appreciation,  is  it  not  sad  to  hear  her  say,  no  one 
ever  gave  such  invitation  to  her  mind  as  to  tempt 
her  to  a  full  confession? — that  she  felt  a  power  to 
enrich  her  thought  with  such  wealth  and  variety  of 
embellishment  as  would  no  doubt  be  tedious  to  such 
as  she  conversed  with? 


120  THE    COLLEGE. 

A  bitter  reproach  to  us  women,  certainly.  What 
better  could  we  do  than  listen,  while  she  embellished 
her  thought  with  all  wealth  and  variety  possible? 
And  I  quote  the  saying,  because  hers  are  not  the  only 
noble  lips  which  have  a  right  to  repeat  it.  Could 
we  but  be  patient  listeners!  In  that  way,  we  might 
educate  powers  of  expression,  and  become  possessed 
of  wealth  of  which  we  have  very  little  idea.  What 
does  such  a  saying  record, — her  egotism  or  our  self- 
ishness, her  insatiable  demand  or  our  bankruptcy? 
We  may  well  confess  to  mortification  when  we  read; 
but  it  is  not  felt  for  her.  Very  beautiful  is  the  con- 
ception of  this  Memoir  of  Margaret,  this  triune  testi- 
mony of  independent  minds.  We  should  be  more 
grateful  for  the  analytical  skill  shown  in  Emerson's 
contribution,  did  it  not  bear  witness  to  power,  rather 
than  appreciation.  We  see,  though  he  could  not, 
what  Margaret  missed  in  her  friend.  She  could 
not  exempt  the  finest  thinker  she  knew  from  the 
customary  tribute;  but  he  could  not  pay  her  in  cur- 
rent coin, — only  in  some  native  ore,  which  it  cost  her 
much  to  make  available  at  need.  Some  time  may 
women  write  the  lives  of  women!  Why  not  warm 
thy  scalpel,  0  philosopher!  out  of  regard  to  what 
was  once  tender,  quivering,  human  flesh?  Rumor 
and  prejudice  carried  the  news  of  Margaret's  faults 
far  enough  while  she  was  living:  what  we  need  now 
is  to  send  on  the  same  wave  the  most  abundant 
and  satisfying  proof  of  her  goodness  and  genius. 
When  great  men  speak  of  her,  they  should  speak 


LIVES   THAT    HAVE    MODIFIED    PUBLIC    OPINION.     121 

grandly  and  find  for  what  vulgar  natures  must  mis- 
conceive, the  noble  and  generous  interpretation.  I 
do  not  mean  that  she  would  have  shrunk  from  the 
boldest  statement  of  the  truth.  It  was  in  her  to 
invite  it.  ''She  could  say,"  says  Emerson,  "as  if  she 
were  stating  a  scientific  fact,  in  enumerating  the 
merits  of  somebody,  he  appreciates  me;"  and  he  refers 
this  saying  to  the  ''mountainous  me"  of  hereditary 
organization,  italicizing  the  offending  monosyllable. 
But,  in  Margaret's  mind,  the  emphasis  lay  quite  as 
often  on  the  word  appreciates;  and  the  statement 
was  of  a  psychological  fact,  a  superiority  to  vulgaf 
prejudice,  which  laid  some  claim  to  her  generous 
estimate  in  return.  Ah!  when  those  we  love  are 
gone  for  ever,  their  faults  drop  away,  like  the  gar- 
ment, which  was  of  the  earth,  earthy;  but  to  great 
and  noble  words,  to  heroic  and  womanly  living, 
God  has  given  a  power  of  blessing  far  beyond  the 
grave.  We  lost  her  at  a  moment  when  we  could 
ill  bear  it, — when,  instructed  by  the  noble  sympathies 
of  Mazzini,  softened  by  her  own  sweet  and  tender 
ministrations  in  Italian  hospitals,  revealed  at  length 
in  loving  beauty  by  a  wife's  and  mother's  expe- 
rience, she  might  have  come  home  the  woman  she 
had  often  made  us  dream  of.  We  see  the  shadow 
of  it  all  in  that  little  picture  which  once  hung  on  the 
walls  of  the  Boston  Athenaeum;  and,  God  willing, 
we  shall  yet  encounter  the  glad  reality  beyond  the 
reach  of  tempests,  beyond  the  need  of  wreck,  lifted 
into  true  deserving  of  so  great  a  privilege  on  the 
broad  ocean  of  an  Infinite  Love! 


122  THE    COLLEGE. 

Florence  Nightingale  is  no  exception  in  the  his- 
tory of  her  sex,  only  a  consummate  flower  of  its 
daily  bloom.  Ever  since  the  commencement  of  the 
Christian  era,  whole  armies  of  women  have  devoted 
themselves,  not  for  a  few  years  only,  like  Florence 
Nightingale,  but  for  their  whole  lives  long,  to  the 
same  painful  duties, — women  who  organized  their 
bands  with  an  efficiency  and  thoroughness,  felt  to 
this  very  day,  and  which  made  them  the  competent 
instructors  of  Florence  Nightingale  in  the  Crimea. 
The  holiest  vocation  fails  to  instruct  the  unprepared 
mind.  The  soil  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  fallow; 
but  in  the  year  385  a  saintly  woman  traversed  those 
same  Crimean  shores.     Of  her  it  was  written: — 

''She  was  marvellous  debonaire  and  piteous  to 
them  that  were  sicke  and  comforted  them,  and  served 
them  right  humbly,  and  gave  them  largely  to  eat,  such 
as  they  asked;  but  to  herself  she  was  hard  in  her 
sickness  and  scarce,  for  she  refused  to  eat  flesh,  how 
well  she  gave  it  to  others,  and  also  to  drink  wine.  She 
was  oft  by  them  that  were  sicke,  and  she  laid  the  pil- 
lows aright  and  in  point,  and  she  rubbed  their  feet, 
and  boiled  water  to  wash  them;  and  it  seemed  to  her 
that  the  less  she  did  to  the  sicke  in  service,  so  much 
the  less  service  did  she  to  God,  and  deserved  the  less 
mercy;  therefore  she  was  to  them  piteous,  and  noth- 
ing to  herself." 

The  Church  canonized  this  woman,  who  carried 
her  own  substance  to  the  work  in  which  the  British 
Government  sustained  Florence  Nightingale  so  many 


LIVES    THAT    HAVE    MODIFIED    PUBLIC    OPINION.     123 

centuries  later;  but  the  public  mind  was  not  prepared, 
go  the  world  has  never  rung  to  the  name  of  Santa 
Paula. 

Florence  Nightingale's  most  heroic  service  lay  in 
breaking  open  the  storehouses  at  Scutari.  It  may 
have  cost  her  very  little,  but  at  that  moment  the  force 
of  accumulated  character  made  itself  felt.  An  ever- 
lasting reproach  to  all  cowards  of  circumlocution 
offices,  the  djuty  not  a  single  commissioned  officer  had 
courage  to  assume  has  gently  crowned  the  woman 
with  the  woven  suffrages  of  the  world. 

The  name  of  Mary  Patton  has  with  us  also  a  true 
educational  power.  There  was  no  obstacle  nor  vulgar 
prejudice  which  this  heroic  girl  was  not  called  to 
combat.  Not  twenty  years  old,  with  two  little  chil- 
dren clinging  to  her  skirts,  and  the  great  primal 
sorrow  of  her  sex  overshadowing  her  afresh,  with 
her  husband  beref,t  of  reason,  and  neither  nurse  nor 
physician  at  hand,  she  kept  the  ship's  reckoning, 
overpowered  a  mutinous  mate,  and  carried  her  vessel 
triumphantly  in  to  the  destined  port. 

The  author  of  ''John  Halifax"  has  so  laid  us  under 
obligation  by  work  faithfully  done,  that  it  seems  worth 
while  to  indicate  the  inconsistencies  which  warp  her 
''Thoughts  about  Women." 

She  speaks  of  the  " Woman's-Rights  movement" 
in  this  country,  as  if  it  were  a  movement  to  force 
women  into  a  certain  position,  instead  of  an  effort 
to  set  them  free,  to  the  end  that  they  may  ascertain 
whether  they  have  any  capacity  for  it.     She  sneers  at 


124  THE    COLLEGE. 

letters  and  account-books  kept  by  women;  and  we 
read  her  words  in  a  country  where  women  are  widely 
and  creditably  established  as  book-keepers,  and  where 
they  hold  classes  to  instruct  others  in  accounts!  She 
tells  us  that  more  than  one-half  of  EngUsh  women 
are  obliged  to  provide  for  themselves;  and  gives  a 
noble  example  of  two  young  women,  who,  on  their 
father's  death,  continued  to  carry  on  a  disagreeable 
business,  to  keep  books,  manage  stock,  and  control 
agents.  They  sustained  a  delicate  mother  in  ease, 
and  never  once  compromised  their  womanhood. 
What  became  of  the  womanly  unfitness  for  letters 
and  accounts  in  that  case?  She  speaks  of  the  con- 
temptible and  unwomanly  habit  of  beating  down, 
and  says  that  men  are  less  prone  to  it  than  women. 
Who  keeps  the  purse-strings  of  a  family?  Who 
condemn  women  to  the  practical  ignorance  which 
makes  them  too  uncertain  of  values  to  turn  at  once 
from  a  manifest  overcharge? 

But,  sadder  still,  this  woman  brings  against  her 
sex  the  two  grave  charges  of  common  falsehood  and 
disloyalty  in  friendship.  We  may  pity  her  for  a 
social  experience  which  seems  to  her  to  justify  the 
statement;  but  let  us  never  repeat  the  libel.  Let  Mar- 
garet Fuller  answer  it,  not  only  by  a  life  of  radiant 
truth,  but  by  the  words  in  which  she  speaks  of  the 
honor  of  which  young  hearts  are  capable,  and  the 
secret  of  her  own  young  Ufe  voluntarily  kept  by 
forty  girls. 

In  her  chapter  on  ''Lost  Women,"  Miss  Muloch 


LIVES   THAT   HAVE    MODIFIED    PUBLIC   OPINION.     125 

does  grateful  service  when  she  draws  attentioiT  to 
those  who  choose  to  dwell  in  the  very  gutters  of  idle 
gossip  and  filthy  scandal,  who  soil  their  lips  and 
tongues  while  they  take  selfishly  faithful  care  of  their 
reputations.  This  word  needed  to  be  spoken.  Bet- 
ter for  a  woman,  that  she  should  be  a  cast-away  in  a 
city  refuge,  with  a  mind  comparatively  pure,  than 
a  woman  in  high  society,  capable  of  catching  or  utter- 
ing the  vile  "double  entendre,"  always  on  the  look- 
out for  a  possible  vulgarism,  wringing  decency  out 
of  human  life  as  if  it  were  only  a  wet  napkin,  and 
sceptical  of  the  purity  and  innocence  she  has  not  yet 
found  in  her  own  heart. 

In  estimating  the  influences  which  modify  public 
opinion  concerning  women,  I  am  not  willing  to  be 
silent  concerning  the  popular  idea  of  love.  It  is  a 
common  thing  to  hear  it  said,  with  a  sort  of  sneer, 
that  no  man  ever  died  for  love, — as  if  it  were  a  quite 
romantic  and  in  nowise  discreditable  thing  that  many 
women  should! 

Creditable  and  discreditable  elements  may  enter 
into  the  assumed  fact  as  it  regards  man;  but  if  he 
does  not  die  for  love  because  he  more  thoroughly 
acknowledges  his  responsibility,  keeping  God  in  his 
right  place  above,  and  his  own  heart  and  its  idols  in 
their  right  place  below,  then  we  may  drop  the  un- 
womanly sneer,  and  go  and  do  likewise. 

I  shall  have  little  hope  for  woman,  till  she  learns  to 
feel  that  to  die  for  love  is  not  so  much  a  pitiful  as  a 
disgraceful  thing;  that  it  proves  of  itself  that  God 


0 


126  THE    COLLEGE. 

was  never  to  her  what  he  should  have  been;  that  life 
had  no  aim  so  holy  as  the  weak  indulgence  of  a  sen- 
timent or  a  passion,  or  some  generous  longing  for 
some  duty  God  did  not  set  before  her;  that  all  the 
world's  work  and  society's  ambition  was  hidden  from 
her  by  a  desire  for  personal  happiness,  spread  like  a 
film  over  her  moral  vision. 

No  better  education  do  I  claim  for  woman  than 
her  entire  self-possession,  the  ultimate  endowment 
of  all  the  promise  she  carries  in  her  nature.  ''The 
great  law  of  culture,"  says  Carlyle,  ''is.  Let  each  be- 
come all  that  he  was  created  capable  of  being;  expand, 
if  possible,  to  his  full  growth;  and  show  himself  in  his 
own  shape  and  stature,  be  they  what  they  may." — 
"The  excellent  woman,"  writes  the  Hindoo  in  Cal- 
cutta, "is  she  who,  if  the  father  dies,  can  be  father 
and  provider  to  the  household." 

"Who,"  says  Count  Zinzendorf  in  Germany, — 
"who  but  my  wife  could  have  been  alternately  servant 
and  mistress  without  affectation  and  without  pride? 
Who  could  have  maintained  like  her,  in  a  democratic 
community,  all  outward  and  inward  distinctions? 
Who,  without  a  murmur,  would  have  met  such  peril? 
Who  could  have  raised  such  sums  of  money,  and 
acquitted  them  on  her  own  credit?" 

To  such  women  I  think  men  will  always  offer  gen- 
erous help;  and,  even  if  they  did  not,  there  are  props 
of  God's  own  disposing.  Let  woman  once  reject  the 
absurd  notion  that  she  was  created  for  happiness,  let 
her  constitute  herself  instead  a  creator  of  it,  let  her 


LIVES    THAT    HAVE   MODIFIED    PUBLIC    OPINION.     127 

accept  with  joy  the  fact  that  this  is  a  working-day 
world;  then  she  will  no  longer  strive  to  escape  from 
labor,  discipline,  or  sorrow,  but  will  gladly  hail  each 
in  its  turn  as  part  of  God's  appointed  teaching,  a 
shadow  crossing  the  sunshine  to  show  that  it  is  bright. 
Perhaps  such  a  life  is  not  easy,  perhaps  many  feet 
must  falter  on  such  a  path;  but,  indicating  what  I 
earnestly  believe  to  be  the  will  and  way  of  God  for 
us  all,  I  earnestly  entreat  you  to  enter  and  walk 
therein.  Some  words  written  by  John  Ruskin  upon 
Art  seem  to  me  to  have  such  force  in  this  connection 
as  to  make  it  justifiable  to  quote  them. 

Speaking  of  a  painter  who  could  only  paint  the 
fair  and  graceful  in  landscape,  he  says : — 

''But  such  work  had,  nevertheless,  its  stern  limita- 
tions, and  marks  of  everlasting  inferiority.  Always 
soothing  and  pathetic,  it  could  never  be  sublime,  never 
freely  nor  entrancingly  beautiful;  for  the  man's  narrow 
spirit  could  not  cast  itself  freely  into  any  scene.  The 
calm  cheerfulness  which  shrank  from  the  shadow  of 
the  cypress  and  the  distortion  of  the  olive,  could  not 
enter  into  the  brightness  of  the  sky  they  pierced,  nor 
the  softness  of  the  bloom  they  bore.  For  every  sor- 
row that  his  heart  turned  from,  he  lost  a  consolation. 
For  every  fear  which  he  dared  not  confront,  he  parted 
with  a  portion  of  his  manliness.  The  unsceptred 
sweep  of  the  storm-clouds,  the  fair  freedom  of  glancing 
shower  and  flickering  sunbeam,  sunk  into  sweet  recti- 
tudes and  decent  formalisms;  and,  before  eyes  that 
refused  to  be  dazzled  or  darkened,  the  hours  of  sunset 


128  THE    COLLEGE. 

wreathed  their  rays  unheeded,  and  the  mists  of  the 
Apennines  spread  their  blue  veils  in  vain." 

Imagine  these  words  written  metaphorically  of  your 
own  inner  lives,  and  accept  the  lesson  they  convey. 
Be  earnest  to  inherit  the  whole  of  human  life.  Insist 
on  turning  the  golden  shield,  till  you  have,  not  merely 
the  iron  lining  full  in  view,  but  whatsoever  Medusa's 
head  the  Divine  hand  has  braced  thereon. 

See  how  many  women  have  excelled  in  literature 
and  art,  in  philosophy  and  science,  within  the  present 
century.  Their  literary  contributions  owe  their  popu- 
larity to  intrinsic  excellence:  they  have  sought  and 
found  the  light  of  day,  without  the  pompous  recom- 
mendations of  institutions,  or  the  forced  encourage- 
ment of  a  clique.  There  is  no  limit  to  womanly 
attainment,  other  than  the  force  of  womanly  desire. 
Biheron,  destined  to  become  an  anatomist,  becomes 
one,  whether  the  college  of  dissectors  smile  or  frown. 
Wittembach,  versed  alike  in  the  mysteries  of  ancient 
tongues  and  modern  physics,  becomes  the  counsellor 
of  the  wisest  men  of  her  time,  without  neglecting  hei 
pantry  or  her  needle.  There  is  no  excuse  for  neglecting- 
any  home  duty  for  the  most  desirable  foreign  pursuit. 
Let  buttons  and  shirt-bosoms  have  their  day,  the 
lexicon  or  grammar  its  own  also.  Let  the  dinner-table 
be  carefully  spread;  the  food,  not  only  well  cooked,  but 
gracefully  laid, — before  we  seek  the  more  precious 
nutriment  of  culture:  and  this,  not  so  much  because 
any  one  has  a  right  to  say  it  shall  be  so,  as  out  of  our 
own  tender  regard  to  the  needs  of  others,  and  a  desire, 


LIVES    THAT    HAVE    MODIFIED    PUBLIC    OPINION.     129 

through  every  possible  self-sacrifice,  to  make  the  com- 
mon road  easier,  and  turn  recreant  public  opinion  to  its 
proper  vent.  Let  a  neatness  as  exquisite,  as  womanly 
and  as  polished  as  that  of  Charlotte  Bronte,  pervade 
not  only  our  homes,  but  consecrate  our  own  personal 
appearance;  then  may  we  safely  wear  the  livery  of 
schools.  It  may  be  double-dyed  in  indigo;  yet,  with 
this  accessory,  no  man  will  assert  that  it  is  unbecom- 
ing, no  woman  have  need  to  comfort  her  own  igno- 
rance by  an  unsisterly  sneer. 

If  God  intends  woman  to  walk  side  by  side  with 
man  wherever  he  sees  fit  to  go,  the  movement  now 
beginning  must  materially  develop  civilization.  Finer 
elements  will  be  poured  into  the  molten  metal  of 
society;  and,  when  the  next  cast  is  taken,  we  shall  see 
sharper  edges,  bolder  reliefs,  and  a  finer  lining,  than 
we  have  been  wont.  Nor  shall  we  miss  the  gentler 
graces.  The  classical  world  bitterly  mourned  the 
young  and  gifted  lecturer,  Olympia  Morata;  but  not 
with  the  broken-hearted  agony  of  the  husband  whose 
strength  and  life  she  had  always  been.  Clotilda 
Tambroni  was  crowned,  not  only  with  the  laurels  of 
a  Greek  professorship,  but  with  modesty  and  every 
virtue. 

It  was  the  tender  appreciation  of  the  women  of 
Bologna  that  erected  a  stately  monument  to  Laura 
Veratti. 

In  England,  a  woman  writes  admirable  tales  to 
endow  a  bishopric  in  a  distant  land.  In  our  country, 
it  was  a  pleasant  omen,  that  the  woman  who  first 

13 


130  THE    COLLEGE. 

made  literature  a  profession  was  urged  to  it,  neither 
by  scholarly  taste  nor  an  eccentric  ambition,  but  to 
fulfil  a  mother's  duty  to  four  orphan  children.  Her 
literary  career  is  not  yet  closed;  and,  though  not  lofty 
in  its  range,  has  been  steadily  pursued,  and  deserves 
the  regard  which  it  has  won. 

The  names  of  Sedgwick,  Sigourney,  Kirkland,  and 
Child  suggest  womanly  excellences  first  of  all.  Let 
us  pay  the  debt  we  owe  these  women,  by  following 
hopefully  in  the  paths  they  have  opened,  till  we  create 
a  public  opinion  without  reproach. 

"If  I  speak  untenderly, 
This  evening,  my  beloved,  pardon  it; 
And  comprehend  me,  that  I  loved  you  so, 
I  set  you  on  the  level  of  my  soul, 
And  overwashed  you  with  the  bitter  brine 
Of  some  habitual  thoughts." 

"Alas!  long-suffering  and  most  patient  God, 
Thou  need'st  be  sureUer  God  to  bear  with  us, 
Than  even  to  have  made  us!     Beloved,  let  us  love  so  well 
Our  works  shall  still  be  better  for  our  love, 
And  still  our  love  be  sweeter  for  our  work!" 


THE   MARKET; 

OR, 

WOMAN'S    POSITION    AS    REGARDS    WAGES 
AND   WORK. 

IN  THREE  LECTURES. 

DELIVERED   IN  BOSTON,   NOVEMBER,   1859. 

I. — ^Death  or  Dishonor. 
II. — ^Verify  Your  Credentials. 
III. — "The  Opening  op  the  Gates." 


And  could  he  find 
A  woman,  in  her  womanhood,  as  great 
As  he  was  in  his  manhood,  then,  he  sang, 
The  twain  together  well  might  change  the  world." 

"But  he  never  mocks; 
For  mockery  is  the  fume  of  Httle  hearts." 

"For  in  those  days, 
No  knight  of  Arthur's  noblest  dealt  in  scorn; 
But  if  a  man  were  halt  or  hunched, — ^in  him, 
By  those  whom  God  had  made  full-fed  and  tall. 
Scorn  was  allowed,  as  part  of  his  defect." 

Guinevere,  in  Idyls  of  the  King. 


THE   MARKET. 


I. 

DEATH  OR  DISHONOR. 

"How  high,  beneficent,  sternly  inexorable,  if  forgotten,  is  the 
duty  laid,  not  on  women  only,  but  on  every  creature,  in  regard 
to  these  particulars!" — T.  Carlylje. 

HPHE  delicate  ladies  on  Beacon  Street,  who  order 
^  their  ices  and  creams  flavored  with  vanilla  or 
pear-juice,  may  not  know  that  bituminous  coal,  rope- 
ends,  and  creosote,  furnish  a  larger  proportion  of  the 
piquant  seasoning  than  the  blossoming  bean  or  the 
orchard-tree;  but  every  man  of  science  does.* 

Already  the  chemist  furnishes  the  attar  of  Cash- 
mere from  the  heaps  of  offal  that  lie  rotting  by  the  way. 
It  is  as  if  God  forced  man  face  to  face  with  every 
repellent  fact  of  nature,  and  said,  ''Sl^ke  thy  thirst 
at  this  turbid  fountain,   child  of  the  dust;  or  the 


* ' '  Now  that  we  can  produce  artificially,  and  from  waste  and  even  noisome 
materials,  the  ethereal  liquids  to  which  the  fragrance  of  the  pear,  the  pineapple, 
and  the  melon  are  due,  and  can  manufacture  spirits  of  wine  from  coal-gas  and 
oil  of  vitriol,  we  can  scarcely  be  over-sangvune  as  to  whatwe  shall  yet  effect  a» 
competitors  with  living  organisms  in  the  production  of  certain  compounds.*" 
— George  Wil80n'»  Life  of  Forbes,  p.  129. 

[133] 


134  THE    MARKET. 

purer  streams  of  the  hillside  shall  trickle  for  thee  in 
vain." 

Somewhat  so,  I  am  compelled  to  turn  your  eyes  to 
the  most  repulsive  side  of  human  life.  I  do  not  do  it 
willingly,  but  of  a  necessity;  not  because  I  like  it, 
but  because  it  is  essential  to  the  argument.  May  the 
contact  prove,  that  the  perfumed  joy  of  later  years 
has  disguised  itself,  for  both  of  us,  in  the  rotting  ac- 
cumulations of  our  social  life! 

It  rests  with  yourselves  to  decide.  These  lectures 
may  be  useless;  they  may  fill  your  minds  with  pain- 
ful details,  open  hideous  vistas,  and  blind  you  to  the 
tempting,  heavenward  ways  which  we  love  to  see  the 
young  and  beautiful  pursue. 

But,  in  such  case,  the  responsibility  is  not  mine. 
/  would  have  you  look  on  vice,  that  you  may  learn 
to  loathe  it;  /  would  have  you  realize,  that  what  a 
noble  friend  of  ours  has  called  the  '^perishing  classes" 
are  made  of  men  and  women  like  yourselves. 

Bidding  you  trust,  to  a  certain  extent,  to  the  truth 
of  those  terrible  statistics  that  crush  Thomas  Henry 
Buckle  in  their  grasp,  I  would  still  have  you  remem- 
ber, that,  besides  the  active  law  of  moral  and  mate- 
rial life,  there  is  ever  the  living  God  immanent  in  the 
world;  and  that  it  is  always  for  you  to  change  the  re- 
sults of  history,  at  any  given  era,  accordng  to  the 
great  first  law, — none  the  less  real  because  so  often 
forgotten, — that  this  living  God  helps  or  hinders  you 
as  you  will,  and  becomes,  at  any  moment  that  you 
choose,  an  important  element  in  each  calculation. 


DEATH    OR    DISHONOR.  135 

The   subject   at   present   before   us   is   ''Woman's  "I 
Claims  to  Labor." 

These  claims  rest  upon  three  points: — 

First,  The  absolute  necessity  of  bread. 

Second,  A  natural  ability,  physical  and  psychical; 
and  an  attraction  inherent  in  the  ability. 

Third,  An  absolute  want  of  the  moral  nature.  / 

Having  treated  these  in  turn,  I  propose  to  show 
you  what  practical  opposition  man  offers  to  her  ad- 
vance; what  fault  lies  in  herself;  how  much  more 
numerous  are  the  occupations  open  than  is  generally 
supposed;  and  what  social  obstructions  have  pre- 
vented her  taking  advantage  of  them. 

In  this  connection,  I  shall  speak  of  those  women 
who  have  opened  a  way  for  their  sex;  and  shall  offer 
to  you  certain  plans  of  action,  by  which,  it  seems  to 
me,  the  convenience  and  the  happiness  of  the  em- 
ployer and  the  employed  may  be  materially  advanced, 
especially  as  regards  our  own  city.  Like  a  wise  child, 
who  from  his  fretful  pillow  takes  the- pill  first,  and  the 
conserve  afterwards,  I  shall  open  the  most  painful 
branch  of  my  subject  in  this  lecture,  and  turn  from 
it  as  soon  as  the   needed   impression  has  been  made. 

I  ask  for  woman,  then,  free,  untrammelled  access  to""] 
all  fields  of  labor;  and  I  ask  it,  first,  on  the  ground  ^ 
that  she  needs  to  be  fed,  and  that  the  question  which 
is  at  this  moment  before  the  great  body  of  working 
women  is  ''death  or  dishonor:"  for  lust  is  a  better 
paymaster  than  the  mill-owner  or  the  tailor,  and  econ- 
omy never  yet  shook  hands  with  crime.  J 


136  THE    MARKET. 

Do  you  object,  that  America  is  free  from  this  alter- 
native? I  will  prove  you  the  contrary  within  a  rod 
of  your  own  doorstep. 

Do  you  assert  that,  if  all  avenues  were  thrown 
open,  it  would  not  increase  the  quantity  of  work;  and 
that  there  would  be  more  laborers  in  consequence, 
and  lower  wages  for  all? 

Lower  wages  for  some,  I  reply;  but  certainly  higher 
wages  for  women;  and  they,  too,  would  be  raised  to 
the  rank  of  partners,  and  personal  ill  treatment  would 
not  follow  those  who  had  positions  and  property  before 
the  law. 

You  offer  then  a  high  education  in  vain  till  you 
add  to  it  the  stimulus  of  a  free  career.  In  this  lecture, 
I  undertake  to  prove  to  you,  that  a  large  majority  of 
women  stand  in  such  relations  to  their  employers, 
that  they  are  compelled  to  death  or  a  life  of  shame. 
Why  not  choose  death,  then? 

So  I  asked  once  of  a  woman  thus  pressed  to  the 
wall.  ^'Ah,  madam!"  she  answered,  ''I  chose  it  long 
ago  for  myself;  but  what  shall  I  do  for  my  mother 
and  child?" 

The  superior  has  a  right  to  every  advantage  which 
he  can  honestly  gain,  as  well  as  the  inferior;  but  he 
has  no  right  to  increase  any  natural  difference  in  his 
favor,  if  he  believe  it  to  exist,  by  laws  or  customs 
which  cripple  the  inferior.  If,  as  political  economists 
tell  us,  it  is  chiefly  by  man,  collectively  taken,  that  the 
property  of  society  is  created;  and  if,  on  that  very 
ground,  man's  interest  has  the  first  claim  to  considera- 


DEATH    OR   DISHONOR.  137 

tion, — does  it  not  follow,  that  every  friend  of  woman 
will  try  to  induce  her  to  become  a  capitalist,  and  open 
to  her,  as  her  first  path  to  safety,  the  way  to  honorable 
independence?  And,  in  t^his  connection,  I  must  re- 
peat what  some  of  you  have  often  heard  me  say,  that  / 
a  want  of  respect  for  labor,  and  a  want  of  respect  for  U 
woman,  lies  at  the  bottom  of  all  our  difficulties,  low 
wages  included. 

I  will  not  admit  that  the  argument  of  the  political 
economist  has,  as  yet,  any  rightful  connection  with 
the  price  of  woman's  work.  ''The  price  of  labor  will 
always  rise  or  fall,"  he  says,  *'as  the  number  of  labor- 
ers is  small  or  large;  and  it  is  because  there  are  too 
many  women  for  a  few  avenues  of  labor  that  the 
wages  are  so  low."  If  man  believes  this,  let  him  help 
us  to  open  new  avenues,  and  so  reduce  the  number  in 
any  one.  But  I  claim  that  he  has  increased  the 
natural  difference  in  his  own  favor,  supposing  that 
there  be  any  such,  by  laws  and  customs  which  cripple 
woman;  and  that  his  own  lust  of  gain  stands  in  the 
way  of  her  daily  bread.  Just  so  in  hydraulics,  men 
tell  us,  that  water  rises  everywhere  to  the  level  of  its 
source;  but  you  may  raise  it  a  thousand  feet  higher 
by  the  aid  of  your  forcing-pump,  or  drop  it  from  a 
siphon  a  thousand  feet  below.  And  a  forcing-pump 
and  a  siphon  has  man  imposed  upon  the  natural  cur- 
rents of  labor.  If,  in  my  correspondence  with  em- 
ployers last  winter,  one  man  told  me  with  pride  that 
he  gave  from  eight  to  fifty  cents  for  the  making  of 
pantaloons,  including  the  heaviest  doeskins,  he  forgot 


) 


138  THE    MARKET. 

to  tell  me  what  he  charged  his  customers  for  the  same 
work.  Ah !  on  those  bills,  so  long  unpaid,  the  eight 
cents  sometimes  rises  to  thirty,  and  the  fifty  cents 
always  to  a  dollar  or  a  dollar  and  twenty-five  cents. 

The  most  efficient  help  this  class  of  work-women 
could  receive  would  be  the  thorough  adoption  of  the 
cash  system,  and  the  establishment  of  a  large  work- 
shop in  the  hands  of  women  consenting  to  moderate 
profits,  and  superintended  by  those  whose  position  in 
society  would  win  respect  for  labor.  When  I  said,  six 
months  ago,  that  ten  Beacon-street  women,  engaged 
in  honorable  work,  would  do  more  for  this  cause 
than  all  the  female  artists,  all  the  speech-making  and 
conventions,  in  the  world,  I  was  entirely  in  earnest. 

It  is  pretty  and  lady-like,  men  think,  to  paint  and 
chisel:  philanthropic  young  ladies  must  work  for 
nothing,  like  the  angels.  Let  them,  when  they  rise  to 
angelic  spheres;  but,  here  and  now,  every  woman  who 
works  for  nothing  helps  to  keep  her  sister's  wages 
down, — helps  to  keep  the  question  of  death  or  dis- 
honor perpetually  before  the  women  of  the  slop-shop. 

Why?  Because  she  helps  to  depress  the  estimate 
of  woman's  ability.  What  is  persistently  given  for 
nothing  is  everywhere  thought  to  be  worth  nothing. 
I  throw  open  a  door  here  for  some  stifled  sufferer  at 
the  West  End:  let  her  open  a  clothing  estabUshment, 
and  employ  her  own  sex;  let  her  make  money  by  it, 
and  watch  for  the  end.  When  an  Employment  Soci- 
ety or  a  Needle-woman's  Friend  becomes  bankrupt  in 
purse,  it  is  bankrupt  in  morals  and  argument  as  well. 


DEATH   OR   DISHONOR.  139 

The  wheels  of  the  world  move  on  the  grooves  of  good 
management,  of  success.  Set  these  once  firmly  un- 
derneath, and  the  outcry  against  our  moral  Fultons 
will  be  hushed. 

In  country  villages  and  farming  districts,  there  is 
a  great  deal  of  harmful  competition  with  the  girls  of 
the  slop-shops,  which  can  never  be  ended  until  it  is 
considered  respectable  for  women  openly  to  earn 
money.  The  stitching  of  wallets,  hat-Hnings,  and 
shoe-bindings,  the  more  delicate  labor  on  linen  collars 
and  shirt-bosoms,  is  carried  on  now  not  merely  by  so- 
called  benevolent  societies  who  want  to  build  churches, 
lecture-rooms,  and  so  on,  but  by  rich  farmers'  wives, 
who  keep  or  do  not  keep  servants,  in  the  long,  summer 
afternoons  and  winter  evenings,  because  it  is  work 
that  can  be  done  privately,  and  is  sought  to  supply 
them  with  jewelry  and  dress.  If  they  will  not  educate 
their  minds  by  profitable  reading,  it  is  earnestly  to  be 
desired  they  should  work,  but  openly,  for  money,  and 
at  such  trades  as  naturally  fall  to  their  lot.  Herb  and 
fruit  drying,  distilling,  preserving,  pickling,  market- 
gardening,  may  yet  lay  the  foundations  of  ample  for- 
tune for  many  a  woman.  I  have  passed  a  summer 
amid  lovely  landscapes,  where  the  women  found 
neither  fruit  nor  vegetables  for  their  table,  but  let  the 
brown  earth  plead  to  them  in  vain;  while  they  stitched, 
stitched,  stitched  the  long  hours  awa>,  every  broken 
needle  bearing  witness  against  the  broken  lives  of 
women  who  needed  in  distant  cities,  where  they  stood 
homeless  and  starving,   the  work,  their  sisters  pil- 


140  THE    MARKET. 

fered,  sitting  at  their  ease  beside  the  hearth-stone. 
Their  ignorance  was  their  excuse.     Let  it  not  be  ours. 

And,  first,  for  a  few  general  statements. 
.  An  indispensable  requisite  for  what  the  Germans 
call  a  "bread  study"  is,  that,  for  average  talent,  it 
should  command  moderate  success.  "Of  all  causes 
of  prostitution  in  Paris,"  says  Duchdtelet,  "and  prob- 
ably in  all  great  towns,  none  is  so  active  as  the  want 
of  work,  or  inadequate  remuneration.  What  are  the 
earnings  of  our  laundresses,  seamstresses,  and  milli- 
ners? Compare  the  price  of  labor  with  the  price  of 
dishonor,  and  you  will  cease  to  be  surprised  that  wo- 
men fall.  Out  of  5,183  prostitutes  in  Paris,  I  found 
that  2,696  had  been  driven  to  the  streets  by  starva- 
tion; and  89,  to  feed  starving  parents  or  children. 
That  is  300  over  one-half  of  the  whole  number." 

"It  is  well  known,"  writes  Miss  Craig,  in  Edin- 
burgh, "how  brief  is  the  career  that  our  female  crimi- 
nals run.  How  they  are  recruited,  it  is  not  hard  to 
guess  in  a  country  where  there  are  fifty  thousand 
women  working  for  less  than  sixpence  a  day,  and  a 
hundred  thousand  for  less  than  one  shilling." 

When,  a  few  years  ago,  the  "Edinburgh  Review" 
collected  the  statistics  of  female  labor,  it  found  the 
wages  about  half  what  were  paid  to  men.  But  no 
reason  was  assigned  for  this  difference;  only,  one 
master  gardener  ventured  to  assert,  that  women  ate 
less  than  men! 

An  advertisement  in  London  for  fifty  dressmakers 
brought  seven  hundred  applicants  to  the  door  of  the 


DEATH   OR   DIskONOR.  141 

warehouse;  and,  after  long  waiting,  a  police-officer 
brought  the  employer  to  explain  why  they  could  not 
all  be  hired.  Sir  James  Clarke  tells  us,  that  the  re- 
sults of  the  inquiry  into  the  condition  of  this  class  of 
women  exceeded  in  horror  those  of  the  factory  com- 
mission. Eighteen  hours  a  day  was  the  allotted  time 
for  work ;  and  nothing  but  strong  coffee  enabled  them 
to  ply  their  needles.  Fifteen  hundred  employers  keep 
fifteen  thousand  girls.  In  driving  times,  they  work  all 
night.  One  girl  testified  that  she  had  worked  through 
the  whole  Sunday  fifteen  times  in  two  years. 

The  lace  makers  also  work  from  twelve  to  twenty 
hours;  and,  in  families  where  a  peculiar  ''knack"  is 
thought  to  be  la'ansmitted,  children  are  put  to  this 
work  from  the  age  of  two  years.  There  is  no  regular 
time  for  food  or  sleep  in  certain  stages  of  the  manu- 
facture; and  many  of  these  overworked  women  be- 
come vagrants. 

A  terrible  letter  from  a  Manchester  mantle-maker 
was  lately  published,  in  which  she  pleads  to  be  per- 
mitted to  earn  twopence  an  hour,  when  compelled  to 
work  overtime  (that  is,  over  twelve  hours  a  day) ;  and 
says,  pitifully,  that,  if  the  present  regulations  go  on, 
nothing  but  death  can  save  her  from  dishonor. 

A  Persian  traveller,  who  visited  the  bazaar  in  Soho, 
was  greatly  shocked  when  he  found  that  all  those 
young  women  were  earning  their  own  living;  and 
plumed  himself  on  the  superior  happiness  of  the 
women  of  his  own  country.  What  would  he  have 
said,  could  he  have  followed  the  clergyman's  daughter, 


142  THE    MARKET. 

as  we  must  do,  from  a  happy  home  and  fine  sewing, 
down,  through  all  the  degradations  of  the  slop-shop, 
to  the  very  gutter? 

But  this  is  England. 

Out  of  two  thousand  women  who  work  for  their 
daily  bread  in  New  York,  five  hundred  and  thirty-four 
receive  a  dollar  a  week.  "How  many  men,"  asks  Dr. 
Chapin,  ''would  keep  off  death  and  conquer  the  Devil 
on  such  wages?  One  woman  had  to  do  it  by  making 
caps  at  two  cents  each!  Think  of  this,  women  who 
like  to  buy  things  cheap :  for,  if  the  veil  could  be  lifted 
from  your  eyes,  you  would  see — the  angels  do  see — 
on  your  gay,  white  dresses  many  a  crimson  stain;  and 
among  the  dewy  flowers  with  which  you  wreathe 
your  hair,  the  grass  that  grows  on  graves!" 

Seven  thousand  eight  hundred  and  fifty  ruined 
women  walk  the  streets  of  New  York, — five  hundred 
ordinary  omnibus-loads.  They  are  chiefly  young 
women  under  twenty,  and  the  average  length  of 
the  lives  they  lead  is  just  four  years.  Every  four 
years,  then,  seven  thousand  eight  hundred  and  fifty 
women  are  drawn  from  their  homes,  many  of  them 
from  simple,  rural  hearths,  to  meet  this  fate.  What 
drives  them  to  it?     The  want  of  bread. 

Last  October,  two  vagrant  women  came  before  a 
Liverpool  court,  who  testified  that  they  had  been 
driven  to  evil  courses  by  blows,  and  forced  to  sup- 
port in  idleness,  by  their  vice^  the  father  of  one,  and 
the  husband  of  the  other. 

This  statement  shocks  you:  but  poor  pay  strikes 


DEATH    OR   DISHONOR.  143 

as  heavy  a  blow  as  a  husband's  right  arm;  and  these 
seven  thousand  eight  hundred  and  fifty  women  in 
New  York  supported  hundreds  of  men  in  ease,  before 
they  dropped  from  the  seamstress's  chair  to  the  curb- 
stone and  the  gutter.* 

Tait  says  that  the  permanent  prostitution  of  any 
city  bears  a  recognized  numerical  relation  to  its 
means  of  occupation.     You  ask  for  proof. 

Out  of  two  thousand  cases  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  five  hundred  and  twenty-five  pleaded  destitu- 
tion as  the  cause. 

One  of  the  police-officers  testified  of  one  girl, 
''She  struggled  hard  before  she  fell;  living  on  bread 
and  water,  and  sleeping  in  station-houses.  In  three 
years,  I  have  known  more  than  fifty  such  cases." 

A  young  girl  of  seventeen  was  left  with  the  care 
of  a  sick,  crippled  sister.  They  were  left  to  touch  the 
very  brink  of  despair.  A  kindly,  fair-faced  woman 
brought  work  which  saved  them  from  death.  More 
was  promised,  on  conditions  that  you  can  guess; 
and  the  toils  so  skilfully  woven,  that  the  young  and 
healthy  longed  for  her  sister's  sickly  face  and  broken 
limb  to  ward  off  her  fate. 


*  What  I  mean  here  will  be  understood  by  a  reference  to  Emile  Souvestre's 
"Philosophe  sous  lea  Toits."  In  a  pretty  story  of  two  women  employed  in  a 
clasp-factory,  he  speaks  of  their  low  wages,  and  says,  that,  having  worked  for 
thirty  years,  they  had  seen  ten  masters  grow  wealthy  and  retire  from  business, 
without  having  changed,  in  any  degree,  their  own  position. 

These  claspmakers  certainly  supported  these  ten  masters  and  their  families 
in  ease;  and,  wonderful  to  relate,  these  two  did  not  fall. 

An  angel,  clothed  in  whit«,  sat  on  the  sepulchre  wherein  their  hopes  were 
buried,  all  through  that  thirty  years. 


144  THE    MARKET. 

"When  a  whole  day's  work  brings  only  a  few 
pennies,"  said  another  to  Dr.  Sanger,  "sl  smile  will 
buy  me  a  dinner.'' 

Out  of  these  two  thousand  women,  one  thousand 
eight  hundred  and  eighty  had  been  brought  up  'Ho 
do  nothing;'^  but,  of  all  the  trades,  dressmaking 
furnished  the  largest  proportion;  and  yet  you  think 
you  pay  your  dressmakers  well! 

Out  of  the  two  thousand,  all  but  fifty-one  had 
been  religiously  educated. 

"It  has  been  shown  elsewhere,"  says  Dr.  Sanger 
"that  the  public  are  responsible  for  this  evil,  because 
they  persist  in  excluding  women  from  many  kinds 
of  employment  for  which  they  are  fitted,  while  for 
work  that  is  open  they  receive  inadequate  compen- 
sation. The  community  are  equally  responsible  for 
non-interference  with  openly  acknowledged  evils." 

Thus  far  I  have  spoken  of  New  York.  I  might 
speak  to  you  of  Philadelphia  and  Boston,  and  tell  you 
of  ruin  wrought  under  my  own  eyes;  of  the  daughter 
of  a  State-street  merchant  found  in  the  gutters  of  To- 
ronto years  ago;  of  a  daughter  whom  that  wealthy 
father  dared  not  deny,  when  I  wrote  to  him,  though  he 
refused  to  furnish  the  bread  that  would  have  kept  her 
from  sin.  I  know  how  hard  it  is  for  a  true  and  good 
man  to  open  his  eyes  to  the  wickedness  and  misery 
near  at  hand.  I  have  no  desire  to  draw  down  upon 
myself  the  local  wrath  of  small  clothiers  and  petty 
officials.  You  know  what  wages  are  in  England: 
let  us  go  thither  for  our  concluding  facts. 


DEATH    OR    DISHONOR.  145 

There  are  five  hundred  thousand  single  women 
in  England,  and  one  out  of  every  thirteen  is  a  thing 
of  shame;  that  is,  there  are  thirty-eight  thousand 
four  hundred  and  sixty-one  women  of  the  town. 

Almost  none  of  these  women  are  drawn  from  do- 
mestic service.  Many  were  found  in  New  York 
who  had  lived  out  for  twenty-five  cents  a  week,  and 
from  that  dropped  to  moral  death. 

You  know  what  to  expect  from  the  lot  of  Eng- 
lish dressmakers,  mantlemakers,  and  laceweavers; 
but  does  it  not  chill  you  with  horror  to  think  that 
the  class  of  governesses  and  private  teachers  fur- 
nishes also  a  certain  number? 

There  is  in  London  a  Governesses'  Benevolent 
Institution.  There  were  lately  before  its  committee 
a  hundred  and  twenty  candidates  for  annuities  of  a 
hundred  dollars  a  year.  Ninety-nine  were  unmarried, 
eighty-three  were  literally  penniless,  all  of  them  were 
over  fifty  years  of  age,  and  forty-nine  of  them 
were  over  sixty. 

One  woman  had  labored  for  twenty-six  years, 
supporting  a  mother  and  five  brothers  and  sisters, 
all  of  whom  she  had  educated  at  her  own  expense; 
but  she  had  not  saved  a  penny.  Three  were  ruined 
by  attempting  to  sustain  their  fathers  in  business. 
Six  had  invalid  sisters  dependent  upon  them.  These 
are  the  histories  of  pure,  untarnished  names:  fancy 
for  yourselves  the  tales  told  by  dishonored  lips.  The 
labors  of  Mr.  Mayhew  among  this  forsaken  class  of 
women  are  probably  familiar  by  name  to  you  all. 

14 


146  THE    MARKET. 

To  deepen  the  impression  which  I  wish  to  make,  I 
shall  quote  some  of  the  evidence  offered  by  him  in 
his  letters  to  the  '' Morning  Chroncile,"  and  close  this 
branch  of  my  subject.  Eleven  thousand  women  under 
twenty  are  employed  in  the  slop-shops.  If  their  own 
words  do  not  touch  you,  mine,  of  course,  will  fail. 

1st  Case. — ''I  work  from  six,  a.m.,  to  ten,  p.m.  In 
the  best  weeks,  I  clear  a  dollar  and  fifty  cents;  but  I 
only  average  seventy-five  cents  the  year  round.  My 
mother  is  sixty-seven,  and  seldom  gets  a  day's  work. 
She  scours  pots  for  the  publicans  at  thirty-seven  cents 
a  day,  but  is  otherwise  dependent  upon  me.  I  was  a 
good  girl  when  I  first  went  to  work,  and  struggled 
hard  to  keep  pure;  but  I  had  not  enough  to  eat. 
Then  I  took  up  with  a  young  man,  turned  of  twenty, 
who  said  he  would  make  me  his  lawful  wife;  but  I 
hardly  cared,  so  I  could  feed  myself  and  mother.'*' 
Many  young  girls  tempted  me, — they  were  so  happy 
with  enough  to  eat  and  drink.  Could  I  have  honestly 
earned  enough  for  food  and  clothes,  I  would  never  have 
gone  wrong;  no,  never.  I  fought  against  it  to  the 
last.  If  I  had  been  born  a  lady,  it  would  not  have 
been  hard  to  act  like  one," 

2d  Case. — ''I  earn  seventy-five  cents  a  week  clear. 
My  husband  has  been  dead  seven  years,  and  I  have 
buried  three  children.  I  was  happy  so  long  as  he 
lived  (here  she  hid  her  face  in  a  rusty  shawl,  and  burst 
into  tears).     I  was  always  true  to  him,  so,  help  me 

♦This  may  strike  some  readers  like  the  hardihood  of  willing  vice;  but  it  is 
only  callousness,  born  of  exposure  to  hopeless  cold  and  hunger. 


DEATH    OR   DISHONOR.  147 

God!  I  was  an  honest  woman  up  to  the  time  my 
security*  died.  I  swear  it.  I  am  glad  my  children 
are  dead;  for  I  could  not  feed  them." 

Sd  Case. — ''I  was  an  honest  woman  till  my  hus- 
band died.  I  can  put  my  hand  on  my  heart,  and 
swear  it.  But  I  was  penniless,  and  a  baby  to  keep. 
The  world  has  drove  me  about  so.  When  I  want 
clothes,  I  must  go  to  the  streets." 

ith  Case. — ^'I  am  the  daughter  of  a  minister  of 
the  gospel;  and  I  pledge  my  word  solemnly  and  sa- 
credly, that  it  was  the  low  price  paid  for  my  labor  that 
drove  me  to  sin.  I  could  only  make  thirty-four  cents 
a  week  at  shirts,  and  should  have  starved  but  for  the 
street.  At  last,  I  swore  to  myself  that  I  would  keep 
from  it  for  my  boy's  sake.  I  had  pawned  my  clothes, 
and  slept  in  a  shawl  and  petticoat  under  a  butcher's 
shed.  I  was  trying  to  get  to  the  workhouse.  I  had 
had  no  food  for  two  days.  My  baby's  legs  froze  to  my 
side,  and  I  sank  upon  a  doorstep.  A  lady  found  us, 
and  would  have  fed  us;  but  I  could  not  eat.  She 
rubbed  the  baby's  legs  with  brandy.  That  night  I 
got  to  the  workhouse:  but  they  would  not  take  me  in 
without  an  order;  so  I  went  back  to  sin  for  one 
month.  It  was  the  last.  In  my  heart  I  hated  it;  my 
whole  nature  rebelled  at  it;  and  nobody  but  God 


*  When  a  woman  wishes  to  get  slop-work,  she  must  find  some  friend,  wha 
will  either  deposit,  or  become  responsible  for  a  sum  equal  to  the  value  of  the 
work  she  is  permitted  to  carry  home.  This  person  is  called  her  "security." 
The  longer  she  works,  the  lower  she  falls;  and,  on  the  death  of  the  "secu- 
rity," it  is  often  impossible  to  replace  him.  The  custom  does  not  seem  to  be 
general  in  this  country. 


148  THE    MARKET. 

knows  how  I  struggled  to  give  it  up.  I  pawned  my 
only  gown  more  than  once." 

Look  at  the  frightful  calmness  of  this  story:  ''They 
would  not  admit  me  to  the  workhouse  without  an 
order;  so  I  went  back  to  sin  for  one  month.' ^  When 
this  girl  told  her  story  to  Mr.  May  hew,  she  had  been 
eight  years  at  service,  honored  by  her  employers.  Her 
personal  beauty  was  so  great,  and  the  whole  story 
so  romantic,  that  Mr.  Mayhew  could  hardly  believe 
that  she  had  come  to  him  of  her  own  accord  to  save 
other  women  from  the  same  fate;  and  he  took  a  day's 
journey  into  the  country  to  confirm  the  facts.  Her 
employers  spoke  in  high  terms  of  her  honesty,  sobri- 
ety, industrj^,  and  modesty.  For  her  child's  sake,  she 
begged  him  to  conceal  her  name;  and  she  told  her 
story  with  her  face  hidden  in  her  hands,  sobbing  so 
as  scarcely  to  be  understood,  and  the  tears  dropping 
through. 

If  you  do  not  realize  the  commonnes.s  of  these  trage- 
dies, may  God  help  you!  Some  of  you  will  assert 
that  all  this  is  necessary;  that,  in  this  age,  a  certain 
proportion  of  women  must  meet  this  fate;  and  wall 
me  up  with  statistics. 

I  tell  you  to  bring  the  battering-ram  of  a  Divine 
Love  to  bear  on  that  wall.  You  will  find,  then,  that, 
just  as  much  as  it  was  decreed  that  such  women 
should  be,  it  was  decreed  that  an  infinite  saving  power 
should  exist,  and  that  you  should  help  to  make  it 
available.  You  may  make  these  statistics  what  you 
will,  not  in  an  hour  or  a  day,  but  in  time. 


DEATH   OR   DISHONOR.  149 

Some  of  you  will  assert  that  women  capable  of 
falling  thus  can  hardly  be  worth  saving.  I  know 
there  is  some  wilful  vice;  I  do  not  desire  to  blink  the 
truth:  but,  among  those  whom  ill-paid  labor  forces 
into  sin,  there  are  women  nobler  and  more  disinter- 
ested than  many  who  remain  pure.  Look  at  the 
stories  I  have  told  you, — women  working  for  their 
kindred;  a  young  girl  of  seventeen  ruined  to  find 
bread  for  a  crippled  sister.  In  New  York,  the  thirty- 
seven  women  supporting  infirm  parents;  twenty-nine 
providing  for  nephews  and  nieces;  twenty-three,  wid- 
ows with  the  care  of  young  children. 

Those  of  you  who  have  had  personal  experience  of 
these  women  will  not  need  me  to  tell  you  that  they 
never  pay  low  wages.  The  washerwomen  and  starch- 
ers  whom  they  employ  are  always  well  paid  and  well 
treated.  They  give  much  in  charity  to  save  others,  as 
they  often  say,  from  their  fate,  and  doubtless  in  the 
secret  hope  that  God  will  permit  them  thus  to  atone 
for  their  sin.  A  few  years  ago,  three  young  girls  lived 
together  in  Glasgow.  One  of  them,  the  youngest  and 
frailest,  a  girl  whose  story  was  like  that  of  Mrs.  Gas- 
kell's  "  Ruth,"  had  left  a  rural  home  for  a  dressmaker's 
workroom.  She  fell  into  a  decline,  and,  in  her  fre- 
quent delirium,  raved  about  the  bleat  of  her  father's 
sheep,  the  evening  cow-bell,  and  the  crowing  of  the 
cock.  In  her  lucid  moments,  the  thought  that  she 
must  die  in  shame  convulsed  her  with  agony.  The 
two  remaining  girls  took  counsel.  ''There  is  no  hope 
|or  us,"  they  said;  "but  perhaps  God  will  forgive  us 


150  THE    MARKET. 

if  we  save  her.  Let  us  send  her  into  the  country,  and 
work  for  her  till  she  dies."  And  so  they  did,  adding 
to  the  reckless  wear  of  their  horrid  life  the  toil  of  the 
needlewoman;  but,  beUeve  me,  they  never  forgot  the 
dying  smile  of  her  they  had  saved.  Did  you  or  I  ever 
make  a  sacrifice  which  would  compare  with  that?  It 
is  painful  for  me  to  stand  here,  and  present  this  sub- 
ject; it  is,  perhaps,  painful  for  you  to  listen:  but, 
with  such  women  among  the  ruined,  only  cowards,  it 
seems  to  me,  would  refuse  to  risk  all  things  to  save 
them.* 


*  Those  who  are  unaccustomed  to  this  class  of  women  will  be  inclined  to 
think  that  the  state  of  things  represented  in  the  text  has  long  passed  away. 
People  who  know  nothing  of  the  value  of  money  talk  a  great  deal  about  "in- 
crease of  wages,"  and  are  apt  to  say  that  any  honest  woman  can  now  get  a 
living.  Women's  wages  are  at  this  moment  of  less  value  than  they  were  before 
the  war;  and,  to  confirm  the  foregoing  statements,  I  add  here  the  statements 
of  my  friend  Mrs  Corbin,  which  reach  me  as  I  go  to  press: — 

"At  a  meeting  of  the  Liberal  Christian  League,  held  at  Rev.  Robert  CoUyer's 
church,  on  Simday  evening,  Feb.  3,  a  report  was  read  by  the  Chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Friendless  Women,  from  which  the  following  is  an  extract: 

Your  Committee  aimed  [in  visiting  houses  of  ill-fame],  in  Chicago,  to  find  out, 
as  nearly  as  possible,  the  general  facts  concerning  the  lives  of  this  class  of  women. 

It  was  foimd  that  these  women  of  pleasure,  as  they  are  called,  instead  of  lead- 
ing the  idle  and  luxurious  life  which  many  imagine,  are,  in  fact,  the  most  steadily 
employed  of  any  class  in  the  community,  and  have  the  least  available  leisure. 
Your  Committee  have  never  yet  visited  a  house  of  this  kind,  staying  on  the 
average  half  an  hour,  but  they  have  found  male  visitors,  either  there  when  they 
entered,  or  coming  in  before  they  left;  and  this  in  the  open  day.  Inqxiiries 
put  to  the  women  concerning  their  hours  of  leisure  developed  incidentally  the 
fact,  that  it  is  only  at  certain  times,  on  certain  days,  that  they  can  get  out;  and 
then  it  must  be  strictly  in  the  prosecution  of  their  calling.  The  terms  on  which 
these  women  are  kept,  are  usually  a  certain  stipulated  sum  per  week  for  room 
rent,  and  over  and  above  this,  the  half  of  their  earnings;  which  makes  it  neces- 
sary for  the  keepers  to  have  a  constant  eye  upon  the  girls,  to  prevent  their  tak- 
ing money  outside.  The  number  of  men  supporting  these  houses  is,  moreover, 
so  much  greater  than  the  number  of  women  supported  therein,  that  every  girl 
is  kept  in  constant  requisition,  either  at  the  house,  or  as  a  walking  advertise- 
ment on  the  street  and  at  public  places. 

Your  Committee,  before  making  these  visits,  were  constantly  assured  that 


DEATH   OR   DISHONOR.  151 

In  France,  where  all  women  of  this  class  are  reg- 
istered, Duchatelet  found  1,680  who  had  erased  their 
names  from  the  list,  on  the  plea  that  they  had  found 
honest  occupation.  He  traced  them:  108  had  be- 
come housekeepers;  864,  seamstresses;  247,  shop- 
keepers; and  461,  domestics. 

The  Society  for  the  Rescue  of  Young  Women,  in 
London,  admitted  two  hundred  members  last  year. 
It  asks  no  questions  of  those  who  enter;  and  the 
wisdom  of  this  is  shown  in  the  fact,  that  its  subscrip- 
tion-list contains  the  names  of  sixty  former  inmates, 


these  women  preferred  this  way  of  life,  and  would  scout  the  efforts  of  their  own 
sex  at  reforming  them.  Your  Committee  take  great  pleasure  in  reporting,  that, 
in  every  instance,  they  have  found  this  charge  utterly  unsustained.  Every- 
where doors  were  freely  opened  to  them;  they  were  treated  with  as  much  polite- 
ness and  cordiaUty  as  they  have  ever  received  in  the  most  respectable  houses; 
and  the  conversation  was  of  the  freest  and  most  satisfactory  character. 

'Are  you  happy  in  this  life?'  was  asked  of  a  delicate  girl  in  her  teens,  who  had 
been  seen,  five  minutes  before,  dancing  and  singing  about  a  man  in  an  adjoining 
apartment  in  the  most  wanton  manner, — 'Are  you  happy  in  this  life?' 

Tears,  sudden  and  sincere,  with  a  look  of  indignant  protest,  filled  her  eyes,  as 
she  answered, — 

'Think  how  we  have  to  treat  the  men:  that  of  itself  is  enough  to  prevent 
any  woman  from  being  happy.' 

'But  you  do  not  always  talk  this  way  to  men?'  was  the  reply. 

'Oh  no!'  she  said;  'I  would  never  teU  a  man  that.  We  always  tell  the  men 
that  we  like  this  life,  and  would  not  live  any  other,  if  we  could;  but  women  know.' 

Another  voluntarily  mentioned  the  intemperance  with  which  they  are  imi- 
versally  and  justly  charged,  as  one  of  the  hard  necessities  of  their  position. 
Women  ought  not  to  drink,  she  admitted;  but  they  would  die  if  they  did  not, 
or  go  mad  with  anguish  and  despair. 

Your  Committee  feel,  that,  at  the  present  stage  of  investigation,  it  may  seem 
premature  to  speak  of  the  causes  of  this  terrible  evil;  this  slavery,  which  their 
observation  assures  them  is  more  degrading  and  horrible  than  any  other  upon 
the  face  of  the  earth:  but  two  causes  have  met  them  so  constantly  face  to  face, 
that  they  cannot  in  justice  refrain  from  mentioning  them. 

The  first  is  the  terribly  prevalent  and  everywhere  tolerated  licentiousness  of 
men.  Your  Committee  believe  it  to  be  an  admitted  fact,  that,  if  to-day  every 
woman  of  abandoned  life  could  suddenly  be  removed  from  the  dens  of  this  city 
and  placed  in  a  respectable  position,  it  would  not  be  six  months  before  their 
places  would  be  filled,  from  the  ranks  of  women  who  are  now  virtuous;  and 


152  THE    MARKET. 

whose  subscriptions  range  from  twenty-five  cents  to 
twenty  dollars  per  annum. 

A  terrible  account  has  lately  been  published  of  the 
straw-bonnet  warehouses  in  London,  by  one  who  has 
worked  in  them.  One  single  story  will  show  you, 
how  that  touch  of  truth,  which,  far  more  than  the 
touch  of  genius,  makes  the  ''whole  world  kin,"  re- 
vealed a  noble  human  nature  in  the  midst  of  what 
seemed  utter  depravity. 

they  have  no  faith  in  any  system  of  reform  which  does  not  strike  effectual  blows 
at  this,  the  mainspring  of  the  evil. 

Over  against  this,  the  first  great  pillar  of  the  institution,  stands  the  almost 
equally  colossal  one  of  poverty,  and  the  exclusion  of  women  from  the  ordinary 
fields  of  labor. 

'Here  is  what  I  work  for,'  said  a  fine,  strong-looking  woman,  as  she  placed 
her  hand  on  the  head  of  a  bright  boy  of  two  years.  '  He  is  my  child.  I  have 
him  to  support.  There  is  no  other  way  which  I  could  earn  a  comfortable  sub- 
sistence for  myself  and  him.' 

Another,  the  keeper  of  a  house  of  ill-fame,  an  intelligent,  graceful,  refined- 
looking  woman, —  a  woman  who  would  have  been  an  ornament  to  any  society, 
— said: — 

'I  was  left  suddenly  poor,  with  my  mother  to  support.  I  had  never  been 
used  to  work,  and  there  seemed  no  work  I  could  do  that  would  support  us  both. 
The  circumstances  of  my  life  seemed  to  force  me  into  this  way  of  living;'  which 
meant,  of  course,  that  some  man  stood  ready  to  offer  her  kindness,  protection, 
support,  every  thing  but  marriage,  and  she  accepted  it.  'My  mother,  to-day 
is  as  innocent  of  any  knowledge  of  my  way  of  life,  as  a  saint  in  heaven.  I  live 
in  daily  terror  and  solicitude  lest  she  should  find  it  out,  for  it  would  kill  her. 
I  am  going  soon  on  a  visit  to  her,  and  shall  carry  with  me  twelve  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars,  with  which  to  secure  her  a  home  for  life ;  so  that,  whatever  happens 
to  me,  she  will  be  provided  for.' 

In  confirmation  of  this  story,  a  hack  came  to  the  door  while  she  was  speaking, 
to  carry  her  to  the  train  she  had  previously  indicated;  which  fact,  together  with 
her  earnest  and  sincere  manner,  left  no  doubt  in  the  minds  of  your  Committee 
concerning  the  truthfulness  of  her  story. 

In  regard  to  the  series  of  meetings  proposed  to  be  inaugurated,  your  Commit- 
tee are  obliged  for  the  present  to  report  unfavorably,  for  the  following  reasons : — 

The  proposition  was  everywhere  cordially  met  among  the  women.  They 
readily  agreed  to  the  usefulness  of  the  project,  and  mentioned  only  one  objection, 
and  that  to  time.  'Sunday,'  was  the  invariable  answer,  'is  our  busiest  day. 
We  could  hardly  get  away  at  all  on  that  day;  but  we  will  try  to  do  so.'  Your 
Committee  saw  at  once  the  blunder  they  had  made  in  forgetting  that  Sunday 
is  the  leisure  day  of  men;  and  therefore  went  to  the  first  appointed  meeting. 


DEATH   OR   DISHONOR.  153 

One  day,  the  worn-out  women  tried  to  compel  a 
young,  fresh  worker  to  do  less  than  she  was  able,  or 
to  secrete  a  portion  of  her  braid,  instead  of  making  it 
up.  They  could  not  prevail.  ''Are  you  a  Metherdis, 
miss?"  asked  one  woman.  ''I'm  not  a  thief,"  she 
rephed  gently.  A  big,  bad  woman  stole  her  extra 
plait;  but  no  one  dared  insult  her.  Once  she  fainted, 
and  some  one  offered  her  gin;  but  the  big,  bad  wo- 
man started  forward:  "Would  you  make  her  a  devil 
like  the  rest  of  us?"  she  cried;  "I'd  sooner  see  her 


through  a  cold  and  blinding  snowstorm,  with  little  hope  of  success.  They  foiind 
the  room  already  occupied  by  some  six  or  eight  street  roughs,  evidently  waiting 
for  what  might  transpire.  They  left  the  room  very  soon,  but  took  their  sta- 
tion about  the  door,  and  remained  there  as  long  as  the  Committee  did.  Sub- 
sequent inquires  confirmed  the  impression,  that  they  were  sent  there  by  some  of 
the  men  who  had  been  in  the  houses  at  the  time  of  the  visits,  to  break  up  the 
meetings,  for  which  purpose,  of  course,  only  their  presence  would  be  necessary. 

Beyond  this  determined  opposition  which  would  no  doubt  be  encountered 
at  the  hands  of  the  male  supporters  of  the  institution,  your  Committee  see 
but  one  serious  diflficulty;  and  that  is,  the  deep-rooted  scepticism  which  prevail 
among  the  women  concerning  any  general  sentiment  of  Christian  charity  in 
their  behalf.  They  have  so  long  been  persecuted  with  unjust  opprobrium, 
abandoned,  outcast,  left  to  live  or  die  as  they  might,  without  one  word  of  pity 
or  encouragement,  while  the  men  who  shared  their  sins,  and  were  oftentimes 
the  guiltier  partners,  were  the  honored  and  trusted  associates  of  Christian 
women,  pillars  perhaps  in  Christian  chiu-ches,  that  they  have  naturally  come  to 
feel,  that  the  sympathy  of  one  or  two  good  women,  however  earnest  and  grate- 
ful it  may  be  in  itself,  will  be  of  little  avail  against  the  malignity  of  the  whole 
banded  world. 

Still  your  Committee  have  seen  nothing,  so  far,  to  discourage  them  in  their 
efforts,  but  every  thing  to  impress  upon  them  the  feeUng  of  imperative  duty  in 

(Signed)  Mrs.  C.  F.  Corbin,  Chairman. 

"The  plan  of  action  proposed  by  this  Committee  was  to  visit  the  women 
in  a  friendly,  Christ-Uke  spirit,  inaugurate  a  series  of  meetings  among  them, 
organize  efforts  in  the  direction  of  saving  their  money,  so  that  they  might  be 
able  to  take  an  independent  position,  with  only  such  moral  support  as  should 
be  necessary  to  enable  them  to  face  the  opposition  of  the  world,  and  to  direct 
their  lavish  free-heartedness  into  channels  of  benevolence  toward  the  old  and 
worn-out  of  their  number.  Pure  and  healthful  pleasures  would  also  be  provided 
for  them,  good  music,  the  reading  of  fine  poems  and  interesting  stories,  and  so 
a  beginning  made  toward  introducing  principles  of  steadiness  and  sobriety  into 
their  now  totally  abandoned  and  desperate  Kves." 


154  THE    MARKET. 

stabbed!"  and  she  got  a  cup  of  tea  from  her 
own  ''screw."*  When  they  were  kept  late,  this  wo- 
man walked  home  with  her,  cautioning  her  against 
gin,  against  young  men,  especially  the  gentry,  and  bid- 
ding her  not  forget  her  prayers:  ''for,"  said  she,  "you 
know  how;  I  was  never  teached."  As  she  parted  from 
her  one  night,  she  said,  "I  don't  expect  it's  any  use; 
but  it  would  do  no  harm  if  you  prayed  once  for  me." 
Who  will  say  that  this  woman  was  irreclaimable? 
And,  in  estimating  the  chances  of  saving  a  depraved 
woman,  you  should  always  remember,  that,  in  nine 
cases  out  of  twelve,  she  sold  herself,  not  to  vice,  but 
to  what  seemed,  at  least,  to  her  longing  heart,  like  love. 
Put  yourself  in  her  place.  Do  not  start:  it  will  do 
you  no  harm.  Think  what  it  would  be  to  slave  soul 
and  body,  day  after  day,  for  a  crust  and  a  cup  of  cold 
water.  Not  so  much  would  your  failing  body  crave 
one  nourishing  meal,  as  the  aching,  human  heart 
within  you  one  tender  look,  one  loving  word.  If,  in 
your  misery,  you  had  kept  some  beauty;  if  you  had 
known  no  gentler  touch  than  a  drunken  father's  blow 
or  a  mother's  curse, — how  strong  would  be  the 
temptation  when  one  above  you  pleaded  for  affection! 
See  how  like  an  angel  of  light  this  demon  would 
descend!  0  my  sisters!  you  have  never  read  this 
story  right.  Such  a  woman  is  no  monster,  only  a 
gentle-hearted  creature,  unsupported  by  God's  law, 
unrestrained  by  self-control.     Your  scorn,  the  world's 

*  This  expression,  used  in  all  such  places  to  denote  the  food,  tea ,  coffee,  or 
gin,  used  by  the  overstrained  girls,  is  terribly  significant. 


DEATH   OR   DISHONOR.  155 

rejection,  may  make  her  what  you  think.  Meanwhile, 
are  you  above  temptation?  Does  not  conscience  en- 
force my  plea? 

''Some  positions,"  says  Legouv^,  "attract  by  their 
ease;  but  it  is  work  that  purifies  and  fills  existence. 
God  permits  hard  trials;  but  he  has  appointed  labor, 
and  we  forget  them  all.  A  serious  comforter,  it  gives 
always  more  than  it  promises,  and  dries  the  bitterest 
tears.  A  pleasure  unequalled  in  itself,  it  is  the  salt 
of  all  other  pleasures."* 

You  have  seen  that  a  necessity  to  live  demands 
of  you  new  fields  for  woman  to  work  in;  and  the 
question  arises,  Is  she  fit  for  these  new  duties?  f 

I  consider  the  question  of  intellectual  ability  settled. 


*  I  do  not  know  that  any  person  has  ever  practically  carried  out  Legouv6'8 
estimate  of  labor  as  a  moral  help,  but  Marie  de  Lamourous,  the  foundress  of 
the  House  of  Mercy  at  Bordeaux.  This  was  a  refuge  for  ruined  women,  whom 
she  trained  to  self-support.  Some  one  offered  her  a  sum  sufficient  to  insure  her 
family  a  comfortable  living;  but  she  wisely  refused  it.  "No  false  pretences," 
she  said:  "if  we  are  not  compelled  to  labor,  we  shall  not  labor.  An  idle  mind 
makes  its  own  temptations.     I  can  do  nothing  without  work." 

t  When  woman's  power  to  work  is  called  in  question,  men  almost  always 
remark,  that  she  has  shown  no  inventive  genius  whatever.  Should  a  proper 
history  of  the  arts  ever  be  written,  this  will  be  found  to  be  an  entire  mistake. 
Patentees  are  not  always  inventors;  and  many  of  these,  after  hopeless  labor 
carried  on  for  years,  have  owed  a  final  success  to  some  woman's  power  of  adap- 
tation. We  need  not,  however,  take  refuge  in  general  statement,  nor  in  the 
traditional  fact  that  she  invented  spindle,  distaff,  needle,  and  scissors.  Any 
new-bom  barbarian,  pressed  by  necessity,  might  accomplish  so  much.  The 
most  delicate  and  beautiful  obstetrical  instruments  were  invented  by  Madame 
Boivin.  Madame  Ducoudray  invented  the  manikin;  Madame  Breton,  the 
system  of  artificial  nourishment  for  babes;  Morandi  and  Biheron  adapted  wax 
to  the  purposes  of  medical  illustration;' and  it  was  to  the  observations  of  Mad- 
emoiselle Biheron,  recorded  in  wax,  that  Dr.  Hunter  owed  the  illustrations  of 
his  best  work.     He  was  her  generous  friend;  but  she  precedes  him  seven  years 


156  THE    MAKKET. 

The  volumes  of  science,  mathematics,  general  litera- 
ture, &c.,  which  women  ^have  given  to  the  world, 
without  sharing  to  the  full  the  educational  advan- 
tages of  man,  seem  to  promise  that  they  shall  out- 
strip him  here,  the  moment  they  have  a  fair  start. 
But  I  go  farther,  and  state  boldly,  that  women 
have,  from  the  beginning,  done  the  hardest  and 
most  unwholesome  work  of  the  world  in  all  coun- 
tries, whether  civilized  or  uncivilized;  and  I  am  pre- 
pared to  prove  it.  I  do  not  mean  that  rocking  the 
cradle  and  making  bread  is  as  hard  work  as  any, 
but  that  women  have  always  been  doing  man's 
work,  and  that  all  the  outcry  society  makes  against 
work    for  women   is   not  to  protect    women,  but  a 


in  this  direction,  and  may  possibly  have  given  him  the  right  to  use  her  observa- 
tions as  his  own.  Madame  Rondet  has,  in  the  present  century,  invented  a 
tube  to  be  used  in  cases  of  restoration  from  asphyxia.  It  is  easy  to  quote  these 
cases  from  the  history  of  medicine,  because  an  honest  French  physician  has 
taken  pains  to  preserve  them;  but  the  following  instances  of  inventive  and 
mechanical  power  may  be  less  known 

In  1823,  the  first  patent  of  invention  was  taken  out  in  Paris  by  Madame  Dutillet, 
for  the  formation  of  artificial  marble.  This  was  so  successful  a  patent,  that 
she  sold  it  in  1824;  and  the  purchaser  renewed  it,  with  still  further  improvements. 

In  1836,  Burrows,  an  Englishman,  took  out  a  patent  for  cement.  Madame 
Bex,  of  Paris,  found  this  cement  a  failure  in  damp  places,  and  pubUshed  a 
method  of  less  limited  application,  in  which  bitumen  was  employed. 

In  1840,  Mrs.  Marshall  once  of  Manchester,  England,  and  now  of  Edin- 
burgh, was  struck  with  the  idea,  that  the  electric  forces  evolved  by  decaying 
animal  and  vegetable  matter,  acting  upon  calcareous  substances,  must  have 
much  to  do  with  the  natural  formation  of  marble.  In  five  years,  by  upwards 
of  ten  thousand  experiments,  she  perfected  an  artificial  marble,  whose  constit- 
uents and  manufacture  were  entirely  within  control,  and  which  could  be  made 
in  hours  or  months,  at  the  maker's  volition.  To  this  cement  she  gave  the  simple 
Italian  name  of  intonuca.  It  is  singular  that  she  should  so  intuitively  have  seized 
this  secret;  for,  under  Madame  Dutillet's  patent,  we  are  expressly  informed 
that  all  vegetable  matter  must  be  removed  from  the  composition,  if  we  would 


DEATH   OR   DISHONOR.  157 

certain  class  called  ladies.  Now,  I  believe  that  work 
is  good  for  ladies;  so  let  us  look  at  the  truth.  ''Let 
it  once  be  understood,"  says  one  of  our  English 
friends,  ''that  the  young  business-woman  is  shielded 
by  the  social  intercourse  of  those  who  are  called 
ladies,  and  it  would  obviate  many  of  those  grave 
objections  which  deter  parents  from  consenting  that 
their  children  shall  brave  the  world  in  shops  and 
warehouses." 

Most  certainly  it  would;  and  to  this  point  we 
must  frequently  return.  Meanwhile,  says  Sydney 
Smith,  "so  long  as  girls  and  boys  run  about  in  the 
dirt,  and  trundle  hoop  together,  they  are  both  pre- 
cisely alike;"  and  I  shall  proceed  to  show  that  large 
numbers  have  not  only  played  but  worked  in  the 
dirt  together,  and  trundled  hoop,  not  merely  through 
our  own  lives,  but  ever  since  work  and  play  began. 


have  the  cement  indestructible.  The  example  is  an  interesting  one;  for  the 
ten  thousand  disagreeable  experiments  show  that  one  woman  at  least  possessed 
the  power  of  persistent  application,  of  long-protracted  labor,  so  often  denied. 

Starch  first  came  into  use  in  England  in  1564.  It  was  carried  thither  by  a 
Mrs.  Dinghen  Vanden  Plasse,  of  Flanders,  who  set  up  business  as  a  professed 
starcher,  and  instructed  others  how  to  use  the  article  for  five  pounds,  and  how 
to  make  it  for  twenty  poimds. 

Side-saddles  for  ladies  first  came  into  use  in  1138.  Anne,  queen  of  Richard 
II.,  introduced  these  to  the  English  ladies. 

The  braiding  of  straw  in  this  country  was  first  begun  in  Providence,  in  1798, 
by  Mrs.  Betsey  Baker,  lately  residing  in  Dedham,  Mass.  The  first  bonnet 
she  made  was  of  seven  straws  with  bobbin  let  in  like  open-work,  and  lined 
with  pink  satin. 

I  had  hoped  to  add  to  these  names  that  of  a  peasant  woman,  who  successfully 
drained  a  large  estate  in  France  after  her  own  original  fashion,  and  was  sent 
from  Paris  to  do  the  same  in  French  Guiana  for  the  government;  but,  although 
no  phantom,    she  eludes  my  researches. 


158  THE    MARKET. 

I  shall  speak  first  of  Asiatic  women;  and  I  can 
afford  to  begin  by  quoting  a  Cochin-China  proverb, 
to  the  effect  that  "o,  woman  has  nine  lives,  and 
bears  a  great  deal  of  killing."  I  do  not  know  any- 
thing else  about  the  Cochin-China  women;  but  this 
looks  as  if  their  lot  were  no  exception  to  the  gen- 
eral rule.  The  Chinese  peasant-woman  goes  to  the 
field  with  her  male  infant  on  her  back,  and  ploughs, 
sows,  and  reaps,  exposed  to  all  the  changes  of  the 
weather.  When  her  husband  is  proved  criminal,  she 
must  die  as  his  accomplice;  having,  at  least,  strength 
enough  to  suffer.  In  Calcutta,  women  are  the  ma- 
sons who  keep  the  roof  tight;  and  you  may  see 
them  daily  carrying  their  hods  of  cement,  spreading 
it  on  the  tops  of  houses,  and  flattening  it  with  a 
wooden  rammer  like  that  with  which  our  Irishmen 
pave  the  streets. 

You  have  heard  of  the  Bombay  ghauts.  Ghaut  is 
a  native  word,  which  means  ''passage  through;"  and 
it  is  applied  by  the  resident  not  only  to  the  railway 
cut  between  the  hills,  but  to  the  hills  themselves. 
These  are  of  volcanic  origin, — a  sort  of  trap.  Formed 
beneath  the  water,  the  mass  cooled  as  it  was  thrown 
up,  and  the  sides  do  not  slope  much.  ''When  I 
gained  an  elevation  of  two  thousand  feet,"  says  my 
correspondent,  and  looked  back,  I  saw  hills  of  all 
shapes  and  sizes  thrown  up,  and  ravines  thousands  of 
feet  below,  all  looking  like  the  dried  bed  of  an  ocean. 
The  table-land  on  which  I  stood  is  two  thousand  five 
hundred  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea;  and,  as  this  is 


DEATH   OR  DISHONOR.  159 

the  elevation  at  Poonah,  the  railroad  from  Campoolu 
winds  as  it  can  along  the  sides  of  the  mountains. 
There  are  twenty-five  tunnels  through  the  solid  rock 
on  this  road,  each  half  a  mile  long  or  more.  There 
are  piers  of  solid  stone,  with  arches  spanning  forty 
feet,  which  rise  a  hundred  above  the  valley.  Part  of 
the  grade  was  formed  by  lowering  men  with  ropes,  to 
drill  the  holes  for  blasting,  a  thousand  feet  above  the. 
ravine.  There  are  twenty  thousand  workmen  em- 
ployed; and  one-third,  or  about  seven  thousand,  of 
these  are" — what  do  you  think?  In  a  country  where 
no  European  man  can  labor,  where  the  native  rests 
until  compelled  by  his  conqueror  to  work,  in  the  year 
1859  behold  seven  thousand  women  laboring  in  the 
ghauts!  Climbing,  climbing,  through  the  cloudless 
day,  women  carry  baskets  of  stone  and  earth  upon  their 
heads,  to  creep  to  the  edge  of  the  ravines,  and  fill  with 
these  tedious  contributions  thousands  of  perpendicular 
feet;  and  the  men  who  pay  them,  doubtless,  talk  to 
their  daughters  about  woman's  lack  of  physical 
strength ! 

In  Australia,  the  woman  carries  the  burdens  which 
man's  indolence  refuses;  and  the  deserts  of  Africa 
bear  the  same  testimony  in  freedom  that  we  glean 
from  the  witness  of  slavery.  In  the  West-India 
Islands,  the  patient  negress  toils  by  the  side  of  her 
mate,  doing  to  the  full  as  hard  a  day's  work,  though 
encumbered  by  the  weight  of  a  child  upon  her  back; 
but  she  does  not  share,  in  the  same  way,  his  hours  of 
rest.  The  customs  of  Africa  still  prevail,  and  she 
offers  her  husband's  food  and  tobacco  on  her  knees. 


160  THE    MARKET. 

Nor  does  the  poetry  of  ancient  Greece  show  us  the 
so-long  vaunted  delicacy  of  the  sex.  Homer's  prin- 
cesses beat  linen  on  the  rocks,  and  Andromache  shares 
all  the  functions  of  the  groom: — 

"For  this,  high  fed  in  plenteous  stalls  ye  stand, 
Served  with  pure  wheat,  and  by  a  princess'  hand; 
For  this,  my  spouse,  of  great  Actseon's  line. 
So  oft  hath  steeped  the  strengthening  grain  in  wine!" 

We  have  crossed  the  boundary  line  of  Europe,  with- 
out any  change  in  the  indications;  and  we  may  drop 
from  Homer  to  the  middle  ages,  or  modern  times,  as 
well. 

The  traveller  who  gazes  admiringly  upon  the  vine- 
clad  hills  of  the  Jura,  rising  terrace  upon  terrace,  till 
the  eye  can  scarce  distinguish  the  limit  between  the 
work  of  man  and  the  rock  of  ages  which  still  crowns 
the  summit,  will  learn  with  surprise  that  the  mind 
which  conceived  of  such  stupendous  labor,  and  the 
hand  which  held  out  honor  and  freedom  as  its  reward, 
were  a  woman's. 

Under  a  burning  sun,  or  exposed  to  a  bitter,  glacial 
hise,  the  first  cultivators,  partly  women,  climbed  slowly 
and  painfully,  by  rocky  ledges  or  crevices,  along  those 
dangerous  slopes  and  beetling  cliffs,  where  trees  were 
to  be  hewn  down  and  briers  plucked  up,  raising  by 
manual  efforts  alone  the  stone  necessary  for  the  steps 
and  walls,  and  the  deep  tunnels  for  the  safe  passage 
of  the  torrents  which  vegetation  now  conceals.  And 
among  them,  wherever  her  donkey's  foot  could  find 
a  way,  went  the  woman  who  devised  the  work  and 


DEATH    OR    DISHONOR.  161 

bestowed  the  guerdon,  with  the  distaff  on  her  saddle, 
which  gives  her  to  this  day  the  name  of  Bertha  the 
spinner.  , 

Yes,  it  was  Bertha,  of  the  Transjurane,  who,  about 
the  middle  of  the  tenth  century,  undertook  this  work; 
opened  the  old  Roman  roads;  and,  in  defending  her 
people  against  the  Saracen  hordes,  first  devised,  it  may 
be,  the  modern  telegraph.  A  prolonged  line  from  her 
Alps  to  the  Jura  is  still  set  with  the  solid  stone  towers 
from  which  Bertha's  sentinels  warned  each  other.* 

On  the  13th  of  April,  1809,  the  French  and  Bava- 
rian prisoners  held  by  the  Tyrolese  at  Steinach  were 
marched  to  Schwatz,  and  thence  to  Salzburg,  under 
an  escort  of  women:  and  the  prisoners,  at  least,  felt 
sufficient  confidence  in  the  physical  strength  of  the 
guard;  for  they  made  no  attempt  to  escape. 

''Not  a  year  ago,"  writes  Anna  Johnson  of  Ger- 
many, ''I  saw  a  young  girl  standing  up  to  her  knees 
in  a  manure-heap,  which  she  shovelled  into  a  cart,  and 
then  drove  to  the  field.  She  was  hired  to  do  this  work 
at  fourteen  dollars  a  year.  On  the  mountains,  the 
women  were  carrying  soil  and  manure  to  the  vines  in 
baskets,  as  Queen  Bertha  taught  them  nine  centuries 
ago."  A  still  less  pleasant  picture  may  be  drawn 
from  Kohl's  "  Reminiscences  of  Montenegro."  "  Down 
among  the  stones,  on  the  banks  of  the  Fuimera,"  he 
says,  ''some  Cattaro  women  and  girls  were  washing 
and  scraping  the  entrails  of  the  goats  that  the  men 
had  brought  to  market.     There  was  one  tall,  slender, 

*  Historical  Pictures  of  the  Middle  Ages,  in  Black  and  White. 
15 


162  THE    MARKET. 

handsome  girl,  dressed  in  a  crimson  petticoat,  and 
jacket  embroidered  with  gold,  and  her  hair  elegantly 
fastened  with  golden  pins.  A  pair  of  richly  wrought 
slippers  lay  on  the  stone  beside  her;  and  she  laughed 
and  talked  merrily  as  she  washed  and  scraped  away. 
At  last,  she  packed  the  whole  into  a  tub,  and  Ufted  it 
on  her  gayly  dressed  head  to  carry  home.  The  next 
day  was  Sunday;  and  I  met  her,  radiant  with  beauty 
and  gold  embroidery,  on  her  way  to  church.  I  often 
met  these  girls  carrying  on  foot  the  baggage  of  the 
riding-parties." 

In  1850,  a  clergyman  of  this  city  tells  me  that  he 
saw  women,  wearing  leathern  breast-plates,  harnessed 
to  the  canal-boats  of  the  Low  Countries,  and  doing 
the  work  of  oxen. 

In  France,  we  find  the  same  evidences  of  out-door 
work  and  physical  ability.  Galignani  tells  us,  that,  in 
consequence  of  the  success  of  a  certain  Madame  Isa- 
belle  in  breaking  horses  for  the  Russian  Army,  the 
French  minister  of  war  lately  authorized  her  to  pro- 
ceed officially  before  a  commission  of  officers,  with 
General  Regnault  de  St.  Jean  d'Angely  at  their  head, 
to  break  some  horses  for  the  cavalry.  After  twenty 
days,  the  animals  were  so  completely  broken,  that  the 
minister  immediately  entered  into  an  arrangement 
with  her  to  introduce  her  system  into  all  the  schools 
of  cavalry  in  the  empire,  beginning  with  that  of 
Saumur. 

Marshal  Baraguay  d'Hilliers,  at  Nantes,  recently 
made  a  distribution  of  St.  Helena  medals  to  the  old 


DEATH    OR   DISHONOR.  163 

soldiers  of  the  empire.  Among  the  number  was  a 
woman  named  Jeanne  Louise  Antonini,  who  had 
served  ten  years  in  the  navy,  and  fifteen  in  the  infantry 
where  she  obtained  the  rank  of  non-commissioned  offi- 
cer in  the  seventieth  regiment  of  the  fine.  She  re- 
ceived nine  wounds  while  bravely  fighting.  "  It  is  not 
the  coat  that  makes  the  man,"  said  our  marshal  when 
he  gave  the  medal. 

One  of  the  great  celebrities  of  the  Invalides  was 
buried,  very  lately,  with  great  pomp.  This  ''old 
invalid"  was  an  individual  of  the  softer  sex, — the 
widow  Brulow, — who  entered  the  army,  in  1792,  as 
a  soldier  in  the  forty-second  regiment  of  infantry, 
authorized  to  enlist,  in  spite  of  her  sex,  by  General 
Casabianca.  At  Fort  Gesco,  she  was  promoted  to 
the  rank  of  sergeant,  after  being  severely  wounded  in 
the  encounter  which  took  place.  Perceiving  that  the 
troops  were  getting  short  of  powder,  she  set  out  alone 
at  midnight  for  Calvi,  roused  the  women  of  that  place 
to  the  number  of  sixty,  and  started  them  off  for  Gesco, 
laden  with  powder  and  ammunition,  which  enabled 
the  little  fort  to  hold  out  eight  and  forty  hours  longer, 
until  relief  came.  A  little  after,  at  the  siege  of  Calvi^ 
the  widow  Brulow,  while  in  charge  of  a  gun,  was  so 
desperately  wounded  that  she  was  forced  to  renounce 
her  military  career;  and  none  other  was  open  to  her 
but  the  retirement  of  the  Invalides,  where  she  was 
admitted  with  the  rank  of  sub-lieutenant.  The  pres- 
ent emperor,  to  whom  the  widow  Brulow  was  intro- 
duced on  his  visit  to  the  Invahdes,  presented  her  with 


164  THE    MARKET. 

the  cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  and  the  medal  of 
St.  Helena;  her  comrades,  by  acclamation,  having 
designated  her  as  most  worthy  of  the  honor.  By  a 
decree,  dated  from  the  imperial  headquarters,  since 
our  first 'edition  was  printed,  we  learn  that  the  race 
of  heroines  is  not  extinct;  for  two  other  women,  by 
that  decree,  obtained  the  military  medal  for  their 
courage  at  the  battle  of  Magenta. 

There  recently  died,  at  Portsea,  in  England,  a 
woman,  ninety  years  of  age,  named  Nellie  Giles.  She 
was  one  of  the  few  surviving  witnesses  of  the  battle 
of  the  Nile;  having  been  on  board  His  Majesty's  ship 
"Bellerophon,"  in  the  command  of  Captain  Darby, 
and  in  all  subsequent  engagements  under  Nelson. 
During  the  action  of  the  Nile,  she  was  surrounded 
by  heaps  of  slain  and  wounded;  and  she  nursed  the 
latter  tenderly,  undismayed  by  the  horrors  of  the 
scene.  Three  days  after  the  battle,  she  gave  birth  to 
a  son. 

The  government,  in  consideration  of  her  great  at- 
tention to  the  sick  and  wounded,  and  of  the  assistance 
she  gave  the  surgeons,  awarded  her  a  gratuity  of  sev- 
enteen pounds  a  year  for  her  life. 

A  young  patriot,  named  Francisco  Riso,  was  killed 
on  April  4,  1862,  at  Palermo,  during  a  popular  demon- 
stration which  took  place  before  Garibaldi's  arrival. 
On  April  20,  his  father,  Giovanni  Riso,  sixty  years  old, 
was  shot  by  the  Bourbon  soldiers,  without  so  much 
as  the  form  of  a  trial.  On  the  very  day  that  Gari- 
baldi entered  Palermo,  a  young  and  beautiful  nun, 


DEATH    OR   DISHONOR.  165 

Ignacia  Riso,  the  sister  and  daughter  of  the  two  Risos 
named  above,  left  the  convent,  and,  amidst  a  shower 
of  balls  and  grape-shot, — a  cross  in  one  hand,  and  a 
poignard  in  the  other, — placed  herself  at  the  head  of 
Garibaldi's  column,  crying,  "Down  with  the  Bourbons! 
Death  to  the  tyrant!  Vengeance!"  She  kept  her  plape 
as  long  as  the  fighting  lasted;  and  her  courageous 
attitude  electrified  the  volunteers.  Ever  since  that 
day,  the  name  of  Ignacia  Riso  has  been  held  sacred. 
When  she  passes  in  the  street,  the  soldiers  bow  low, 
and  bless  her  with  the  most  profound  respect.  Gari- 
baldi himself  pays  her  great  attention,  and  loves  her 
as  if  she  were  his  own  daughter. 

From  instances  like  these,  refreshing  because  they 
tell  of  self-imposed  labor  and  eccentric  character,  we 
turn  with  less  pleasure  to  the  statistics  of  the  facto- 
ries. Here  men  have  left  to  women  not  only  the 
worst  paid  but  the  most  unwholesome  work  of  the 
respective  mills. 

Women,  in  France,  are  employed  in  the  manufac- 
ture of  cotton,  silk,  and  wool.  The  cotton  manufac- 
ture compels  two  processes  which  are  very  injurious, 
— the  beating  of  the  cotton,  which  brings  on  a 
distressing  phthisis;  and  the  preparation,  or  dress- 
ing, which  needs  a  degree  of  heat  not  to  be  endured 
after  mature  age.  Both  these  departments  are  filled 
by  women  paid  at  half-prices. 

The  woollen  manufacture  compels  only  one  un~ 
wholesome  process, — that  of  carding;  but  all  the 
carders  are  women  at  half-wages. 


l66 


THE    MARKET. 


In  the  silk  factories,  again,  there  are  two  un- 
wholesome processes  entirely  carried  on  by  women. 
The  first  is  the  drawing  of  the  cocoons,  where  the 
hands  must  be  kept  constantly  in  boiling  water,  and 
the  odor  of  the  putrefying  insects  constantly  fills  the 
lungs;  the  second  is  carding  the  floss,  the  fine  lint 
of  which  affects  the  bronchial  tubes.  Six  out  of 
every  eight  women  so  employed  die  in  a  few  months. 
Healthy  young  girls  from  the  mountains  soon  de- 
velop tubercular  consumption;  and,  to  complete  the 
dreadful  tale,  they  are  kept  upon  the  lowest  wages; 
being  paid  only  twenty  cents  where  a  man  would 
earn  sixty.* 

The  Anglo-Saxons,  says  the  historian,  ''had  not 
been  long  settled  in  England  before  the  more  savage 
of  their  traits  were  softened  down.  The  wife  con- 
tinued to  be  regularly  purchased  by  her  husband, 
and  the  contract  was  considered  a  mere  money  bar- 
gain, long  subsequent  to  the  reign  of  Ethelbert." 
And  why?"  Not  because  love  was  mercenary;  but 
because  woman  was  regarded,  in  the  first  place,  as 
a  beast  of  burden,  a  laborer.  In  the  ''Romany 
Eye,"  we  are  told  that  the  sale  of  a  wife  with  a 
halter  round  her  neck  is  still  a  legal  (?)  transaction  in 
England.  "It  must  be  done  in  the  cattle-market,  as 
if  she  were  a  mare;  all  women  being  considered  as 
mares  by  the  old  English  law,  and,  indeed,  called 
mares  in  certain  countries  where  genuine  old  Eng- 
lish law  is  still  preserved." 

*  Ernest  Legouv6. 


DEATH    OR    DISHONOR.  167 

Such  a  sale  as  this  was  recently  completed  at 
Worcester,  and  the  agreement  between  the  men  was 
published  in  the  "Worcester  Chronicle." 

''Thomas  Middleton  delivered  up  his  wife  Mary 
Middleton  to  Philip  Rostins  for  one  shilling  and  a 
quart  of  ale;  and  parted  wholly  and  solely  for  life 
never  to  trouble  one  another. 

"Witness.  (Signed)      Thomas  X  Middleton,  his  mark. 
Witness.  Mary  Middleton,  his  wife. 

Witness.  Philip  X  Rostins,  his  mark. 

Witness.  '      S.  H.  Stone,  Crown  Inn,  Friar  St." 

I  have  preserved  the  old  expression  mare  in  my 
quotation,  to  indicate,  not  the  degradation  to  which 
women  fell,  but  that  it  was  as  a  beast  of  burden 
that  men  regarded  her.  Several  cases  of  sales,  such 
as  is  here  referred  to,  have  occurred  within  a  few 
years;  but  this  is  the  only  certificate  of  transfer 
that  I  ever  saw.  I  desire  to  direct  your  attention 
to  the  remarkable  fact,  that,  of  the  three  parties  to 
it,  the  wife,  who  was  sold,  was  the  only  one  who  could 
write  her  name.  The  men  signed  it  by  a  mark.* 
**A  generation  back,"  says  Corbett,  ''it  was  a  com- 
mon thing  to  see  women,  half  naked,  working  like 
beasts,  chained  to  carts,  upon  the  common  roads 
of  England." 


*  While  these  papers  were  preparing  for  the  press,  the  record  of  another  such 
sale,  in  August,  1859,  disgraced  the  English  nation.  Opposite  the  brewery, 
at  Dudley,  in  Staffordshire,  not  many  miles  from  Kidderminster  and  Birming- 
ham, a  man  named  Pensotte  sold  his  wife,  with  a  halter  roimd  her  neck,  for 
sixpence.  He  had  previously  dragged  her — a  three  weeks'  bride — three  quar- 
ters of  a  mile  in  this  state.  It  is  intimated  in  this  case,  that  she  was  not  faithfid; 
but  it  is  the  first  time  I  ever  saw  such  a  charge  attached  to  such  an  accoimt. 


168  THE    MARKET. 

When  Lord  Ashley's  Commission  reported,  in 
1842,  five  thousand  females  were  at  work,  more 
than  a  thousand  feet  below  the  soil,  in  the  coal- 
mines of  the  north  of  England.  These  women  were 
nearly  naked,  and  drew  trucks,  in  harness,  on  all- 
fours,  like  beasts  of  burden.  You  cannot  have  for- 
gotten the  remarkable  description  of  such  women 
in  Disraeli's  novel  of  ''The  Sibyl." 

"They  come  forth.  The  plain  is  covered  with 
the  swarming  multitude:  bands  of  stalwart  men, 
broad-chested  and  muscular,  wet  with  toil,  and  black 
as  the  children  of  the  tropics;  troops  of  youth,  alas! 
of  both  sexes,  though  neither  their  raiment  nor  their 
language  indicates  the  difference.  All  are  clad  in 
male  attire,  and  oaths  that  men  might  shudder  to 
hear  issue  from  lips  born  to  breathe  words  of  sweet- 
ness. Yet  these  are  to  be,  some  are,  the  mothers 
of  England!  Can  we  wonder  at  the  hideous  coarse- 
ness of  their  language,  when  we  remember  the  savage 
rudeness  of  their  Kves?  Naked  to  the  waist,  an  iron 
chain  fastened  to  a  belt  of  leather  runs  between 
their  legs,  clad  in  canvas;  while,  on  hands  and  feet, 
an  English  girl,   for  twelve,   sometimes  for  sixteen, 


Americans  are  anxious  to  understand  this  outrage.  Is  it  possible  that  a  govern- 
ment which  forbids  the  sale  of  a  negro  cannot  forbid  the  sale  of  a  Saxon  wife? 
What  shadow  of  law  sustains  the  custom?  Is  the  woman  supposed  to  be  sold 
into  wifehood  or  servitude?  I  have  taken  it  for  granted  that  the  word  "mare" 
shows  that  she  is  regarded  as  a  beast  of  burden.  It  is  impossible  for  the  fairest 
and  loftiest  woman  in  England — nay,  for  Victoria  herself — not  to  suffer,  in 
some  degree,  from  the  public  opinion  which  such  transactions,  ever  so  rarely 
occurring,  tend  to  form. 


DEATH    OR   DISHONOR.  169 

hours  a  day,  hauls  and  hurries  tubs  of  coal  along 
subterranean  roads,  dark,  precipitous,  and  plashy." 
These  women,  called  free,  were  the  wretched  slaves 
of  capital.  In  the  life  of  Stephenson,  the  railway 
engineer,  you  will  find  a  further  account  of  them, 
and  may  read  the  chilling  answer  given  by  a  woman 
whom  he  asked  if  she  had  ever  heard  of  Jesus, 
''that  no  such  hand  had  ever  worked  in  her  shaft!'' 
Let  the  proprietors  of  English  mines  remember! 
No  such  hand  did  ever  work  in  those  shafts,  yet  they 
called  themselves  Christian  men!  True  as  death 
were  the  words.  If  the  law  is  now  free  of  reproach, 
the  evil  has  by  no  means  ceased  to  exist:  the  Master 
still  stands  knocking. 

''Children,"  wrote  Lord  Ashley,  "are  taken  to 
work  when  only  four  years  old,  girls  as  well  as  boys. 
Dragging  the  coal  carriages  requires  the  whole  strength 
of  either  sex.  Young  men  and  women,  married 
women  and  married  men,  work  together  through  the 
same  number  of  hours,  almost,  sometimes  quite, 
naked,  constantly  demoralizing  each  other.  It  stints 
their  growth  and  cripples  their  limbs."  In  the  east 
of  Scotland,  they  still  toil  up  steep  ladders  from  the 
shafts. 

If  it  were  my  purpose  to  show  you  moral  degrada- 
tion, you  could  hardly  bear  what  I  must  say;  but  I 
desire  only,  at  this  moment,  to  show  you  these  men 
and  women  working,  as  Sydney  Smith  would  say,  in 
the  dirt  together.  In  1842,  the  Earl  of  Durham  knew 
of  this;   and  he  and  the  set  with  whom  he  lived 


170  THE    MARKET. 

dared,  doubtless,  to  whisper  to  the  ladies  in  their 
halls,  that  women  were  not  made  to  labor! 

In  the  calico-mills,  girls  grind  and  mix  the  colors. 
They  are  called  teerers.  They  begin  at  five  years  of 
age,  and  labor  twelve  hours  a  day,  sometimes  six- 
teen; and  are  kept  late  into  the  night  to  prepare  for 
the  following  day. 

In  Sedgely  and  Warrington,  the  fate  of  the  female 
pinmakers  is  no  better.  They  begin  at  five  years  of 
age,  and  work  from  twelve  to  sixteen  hours  a  day. 
If  refractory,  they  are  struck  at  Wiltenhall  with  strap, 
stick,  hammer,  or  file,  in  spite  of  the  delicacy  of  the 
sex.  In  Sedgely,  more  women  are  employed  than 
men;  but  they  do  not  fare  any  better:  their  bodies 
are  seamed  by  blows  given  with  bars  of  burning 
iron. 

0  my  sisters!  why  has  God  sheltered  us  in  quiet 
homes?  What  have  we  done  to  deserve  a  happier 
fate?  Why  were  we  not  left  to  writhe  beneath 
the  blows  of  the  smith,  or  the  outrage  of  a  market- 
sale? 

Because  God  has  laid  down  a  responsibility  by  the 
side  of  every  privilege;  and  requires  us  to  labor  not 
merely  to  set  such  women  free,  but  to  establish  a 
freedom  and  security  by  law, — ^the  law  of  custom  as 
well  as  the  law  of  courts,  which  we  only  possess 
through  usurpation  or  indulgence. 

1  will  not  leave  these  English  shores  without  allud- 
ing to  the  physical  strength  shown  by  that  lovely 
paralytic,  Anna  Gurney.     Deprived  of  the  use  of  her 


DEATH    OR   DISHONOR.  171 

limbs  in  very  early  life,  she  acquired  the  Latin,  Greek, 
and  Hebrew,  and  finally  the  Teutonic  tongues,  with  a 
facility  and  thoroughness  that  her  Anglo-Saxon  trans- 
lations show.  Men  might  be  excused  if  they  shel- 
tered from  contact  with  the  world  this  infirm  creature, 
dependent  upon  artificial  aid  for  every  movement;  but 
what  did  she  choose  for  herself? 

In  1825,  after  her  mother's  death,  she  went  to  live 
at  Northrepps.  At  her  own  expense,  she  procured 
one  of  Manby's  apparatus  for  saving  the  lives  of  sea- 
men cast  upon  that  dangerous  coast;  and,  in  cases 
of  great  urgency  and  peril,  she  caused  herself  to  be 
carried  down  to  the  beach,  and,  from  the  sick  chair 
which  she  wheeled  over  the  sand,  directed  every 
movement  for  the  rescue  and  recovery  of  the  half- 
drowned  men. 

Look  at  the  pictures!  See  that  grimy,  tangled 
woman  in  harness,  straining,  in  full  health,  along 
the  coal-shafts!  See,  nearer,  this  lovely  cripple,  the 
Quaker  cap  folded  over  her  soft,  brown  hair,  her  soul 
erect  and  noble,  doing  the  duty  of  a  Grace  Darling! 
The  first  labors  like  the  brute  beast,  the  victim  of 
human  misgovernment  and  heathenish  ignorance;  the 
last  chooses  for  herself  a  conflict  with  the  storm,  and 
earns,  with  as  full  right  a^  any  brother,  the  meed  of 
the  world. 

Let  us  pass  over  to  America.  The  Ca^ribs  of 
Honduras  are  a  hardy  race,  and  do  not  share  the  pre- 
judices of  Massachusetts  on  the  subject  of  labor. 
Each  man  has  several  wives.     For  each  he  clears  a 


172  THE    MARKET. 

plantation  and  builds  a  house.  In  a  year,  she  has 
every  kind  of  breadstuff  under  cultivation;  and  hires 
creers,  which  she  freights  for  Truxillo  and  Belize,  her 
husband  often  commanding  for  her.  If  her  agricul- 
tural labors  prove  too  heavy,  as  a  thrifty  woman  will 
sometimes  'make  them,  she  hires  her  husband  to  work 
for  her  at  two  dollars  a  week. 

So  the  Northern  Indian  glides  nimbly  through  the 
woods;  while  the  squaw  carries  on  her  unlucky  back 
their  common  food  and  covering,  or  perhaps  hauls 
the  canoe  across  the  portage.  A  Jesuit  priest  re- 
buked an  Orinoco  woman  for  infanticide.  ''I  wish 
my  mother  had  been  brave  enough  to  part  with  me!" 
was  her  reply.  ''Our  husbands  go  to  hunt;  and  we 
drag  after  them,  one  baby  at  the  breast,  another  on 
our  back.  When  we  return,  we  cannot  sleep,  but 
must  grind  maize  all  night  for  their  chica.  Drunken, 
they  beat  us,  or  stamp  us  under  foot;  and,  after 
twenty  years  of  such  labor,  a  young  wife  is  brought 
home  to  abuse  us  and  such  children  as  we  have  not 
killed.     What  ought  I  to  do?" 

At  Santa  Cruz,  Theodore  Parker  writes  to  Francis 
Jackson  that  men  and  women  work  together  to  repair 
the  pubUc  highway;  hoeing  the  earth  into  trays,  and 
throwing  it  into  a  cart  which  they  drag  and  push 
together. 

In  Ohio,  last  year,  about  thirty  girls  went  from 
farm  to  farm,  hoeing,  ploughing,  and  the  like,  for 
sixty-two  and  a  half  cents  a  day.  At  Media,  in 
Pennsylvania,  two  girls  named  Miller  carry  on  a  farm 


DEATH    OR   DISHONOR.  173 

of  three  hundred  acres;  raising  hay  and  grain,  hiring 
labor,  but  working  mostly  themselves.  These  women 
are  not  ignorant:  they  at  one  time  made  meteoro- 
logical observations  for  an  association  auxiliary  to 
the  Smithsonian  Institute.  But  labor  attracts  them, 
as  it  would  many  women  if  they  were  not  oppressed 
by  public  opinion. 

"In  New  York,"  writes  a  late  correspondent  of  the 
''Lily,"  "I  saw  women  performing  the  most  menial 
offices, — carrying  parcels  for  grocers,  and  trunks  for 
steamboats.  They  often  sweep  the  crossings  in 
muddy  weather;  and  I  once  saw  one  carrying  brick 
and  mortar  for  a  mason." 

During  the  late  terrible  destruction  of  property 
at  the  Lawrence  mills,  the  women,  heroic  in  every 
department,  did  not  excuse  themselves  from  the  sever- 
est labor.  When,  after  hours  of  extreme  exertion, 
the  firemen,  worn  down  and  quite  exhausted,  called 
for  help,  a  bevy  of  ladies,  who  were  standing  on  the 
sidewalk  in  Canal  Street,  flew  over  to  the  engines, 
and,  ''manning"  the  brakes,  worked  the  machine, 
amid  the  cheers  of  the  firemen. 

You  know  what  bodily  strength  and  nervous  energy 
carried  Mary  Patton  round  Cape  Horn.  Well,  on  the 
25th  of  June,  1858,  the  British  ship  "Grotto"  left 
Cuba;  and,  on  the  second  day,  the  yellow-fever  broke 
out  in  the  worst  form.  Seven  days  after,  so  many 
had  died,  that  there  remained  only  the  captain,  his 
wife,  and  two  of  the  crew.  Then  the  captain  was 
taken  ill;  and,  beside  nursing  him,  the  poor  wife,  who 


174  THE    MARKET. 

had  already  nursed  officers  and  men,  took  her  station 
at  the  wheel,  and  steered  by  his  instructions  for 
Sandy  Hook.  There  the  steam-tug  ^'Huntress" 
found  them,  the  heroic  woman  at  the  wheel,  the 
husband  at  that  moment  struggling  with  death;  and, 
when  they  reached  New  York,  three  out  of  eleven, 
one  of  them  the  suffering  wife,  survived  to  tell  the 
tale,  and  show  how  a  woman  can  work.  So  com- 
mon are  such  instances  becoming,  that  you  have 
hardly  heard  the  name  of  this  Mrs.  Nichols,  for  whom 
tender  charity  soon  cared. 

A  mutiny  on  board  the  ship  ''Maria,"  of  New 
York,  was  put  down  Nov.  10,  1860,  by  the  energy 
and  decision  of  the  wife  of  the  master.  Captain 
Clark,  who,  with  pistols  in  her  hands,  threatened  to 
shoot  one  of  the  mutineers  if  he  did  not  desist.  He 
was  cowed  into  submission;  and,  a  signal  being 
made  to  the  revenue  cutter,  the  mutineers  were  taken 
into  custody.  The  mate  would  have  been  killed, 
but  for  the  heroic  woman's  intrepidity. 

But  all  such  labor  is  the  result  of  compulsion, — 
compulsion  of  barbarism,  of  slavery,  of  unfair  com- 
petition, or  dire  disease.  Let  us  close  this  branch  of 
our  subject  with  a  picture  homely  but  attractive. 
''According  to  thy  request,"  writes  a  Quaker  friend 
from  Wilmington,  Del.,  "I  send  thee  some  facts  con- 
cerning Sarah  Ann  Scofield.  Some  fifteen  years 
since,  her  father  became  very  much  involved  in  debt. 
He  owed  some  ten  or  twelve  hundred  dollars;  having 
lost  largely  by  working  for  cotton  and  woollen  mills. 


DEATH    OR    DISHONOR.  175 

His  business  was  making  spindles  and  fliers.  His 
daughter,  then  just  sixteen,  proposed  to  go  into  her 
father's  shop  and  assist  him;  she  being  the  oldest  of 
seven  children.  He  accepted  her  offer,  and  told  me 
himself,  that,  in  twelve  months,  she  could  finish  more 
work,  and  do  it  better,  than  any  man  he  had  ever 
trained  for  eighteen.  She  earned  fifteen  dollars  a 
week  at  the  rate  he  then  paid  other  hands.  Her 
father  died.  Her  two  oldest  brothers  learned  the 
trade  of  her,  and  went  away.  She  has  now  two 
younger  sisters  in  apprenticeship,  and  a  brother  four- 
teen years  of  age,  all  working  under  her;  turning, 
polishing,  filing,  and  fitting  all  kinds  of  machinery. 
I  went  out  to  see  her  last  week.  She  was  then  mak- 
ing water-rams  to  force  streams  into  barns  and  houses. 
She  is  also  beginning  to  make  many  kinds  of  carriage- 
axles.  She  is  her  own  draughtsman,  and  occasionally 
does  her  own  forging.  To  use  her  own  words, 
'What  any  man  can  do,  I  can  but  try  at.'  She  has 
a  steam-engine,  every  part  of  which  she  understands; 
and  I  know  that  her  work  gives  entire  satisfaction. 
When  they  have  steady  employment,  they  clear  sixty 
dollars  a  week;  and  she  says  she  would  rather  work 
at  it  for  her  bread,  than  at  sewing  for  ten  times 
the  money.  The  truth  is,  it  is  a  business  she  is 
fond  of." 

I  have  shown  you  that  a  very  large  number  of  wo- 
men are  compelled  to  self-support;  that  the  old  idea, 
that  all  men  support  all  women,  is  an  absurd  fiction; 
and,  if  you  require  other  evidence  than  mine,  you 


176  THE    MARKET. 

may  fiad  it  in  the  English  courts,  under  the  working 
of  the  new  Divorce  Bill.  Nearly  all  the  women  who 
have  applied  for  divorces  have  proved  that  the  sub- 
sistence of  the  family  depended  upon  them.  Out  of 
six  million  of  British  women  over  twenty-one  years 
of  age,  one-half  are  industrial  in  their  mode  of  life, 
and  more  than  two  millions  are  self-supporting  in 
their  industry  like  men.  Put  this  fact  fully  before 
your  eyes. 

Driven  to  self-support,  you  have  seen,  also,  that 
low  wages  and  comparatively  few  and  overcrowded 
avenues  of  labor  compel  women  to  vicious  courses 
for  their  daily  bread.  The  streets  of  Paris,  London, 
Edinburgh,  New  York,  and  Boston,  tell  us  the  same 
painful  story;  and  in  glaring,  crimson  letters,  rises 
everywhere  the  question, — ''Death  or  dishonor?"  I 
have  shown  you  that  there  is  encouragement  for  moral 
effort,  because  these  women  escape  from  vice  as  fast 
as  they  find  work  to  do.  ''  Have  they  strength  for  the 
conflict,"  you  ask,  ''or  desire  to  enter  such  fields?" 
Find  your  answer  in  what  they  have  done  from  the 
earliest  ages,  with  the  foot  of  Confucius  and  Vishnu, 
of  capital  and  interest,  upon  their  necks.  In  the 
lovely  lives  of  Bertha  and  Ann  Gurney,  and  the 
powerful  attraction  of  Sarah  Scofield,  you  have  found 
pleasanter  pictures  whereon  to  rest  your  eyes.  Let 
no  man  taunt  woman  with  inability  to  labor,  till  the 
coal-mines  and  the  metal-works,  the  rotting  cocoons 
and  fuzzing-cards,  give  up  their  dead;  till  he  shares 
with  her,  equally  at  least,  the  perils  of  manufactures 


DEATH   OR   DISHONOR.  177 

and  the  press  of  the  market.     As  partners,  they  must 
test  and  prove  their  comparative  power. 

We  must  next  consider  what  need  woman's  moral 
nature  has  of  work,  and  what  sort  of  opposition  man 
practically  offers  her. 


16 


178  .  THE    MARKET. 


II. 

VERIFY  YOUR  CREDENTIALS. 

"  This  hurts  most,  this     .      .      .  that,  after  all,  we  are  paid 
The  worth  of  our  work,  perhaps." 

E.  B.  Browning. 

TF  low  wages,  by  actually  starving  women  and 
"*■  those  dependent  upon  them,  force  many  into 
vicious  courses,  so  does  the  want  of  employment 
lower  the  whole  moral  tone,  and  destroy  even  the 
domestic  efficiency  of  those  whose  minds  seek  variety 
and  freedom.  More  than  once  have  I  been  to  insane 
asylums  with  young  girls  whom  active  and  acceptable 
employment  would  have  saved  from  mania;  and 
scores  of  times  have  youjig  women  of  fortune  asked 
me,  ^'What  can  you  give  me  to  do?" 

And  to  this  question  there  is,  in  the  present  state 
of  the  public  mind,  no  possible  answer.  No  woman 
of  rank  can  find  work,  if  she  do  not  happen  to  be 
philanthropic,  literary,  or  artistic  in  her  taste,  without 
braving  the  influence  of  home,  or,  what  is  next  dear- 
est, the  social  circle,  and  earning  for  herself  a  position 
so  couspicuous  as  to  be  painful  to  the  most  energetic. 
The  woman  who  is  pl-epared  for  all  this  ,will  not  ask 
anybody  what  she  is  to  do:  she  will  take  her  work 
into  her  own  hands,  and  do  it. 


VERIFY    YOUR    CREDENTIALS.  179 

That  was  a  pleasant  time  in  the  history  of  the 
world,  when  every  woman  found,  in  spinning,  weav- 
ing, and  sewing,  in  the  active  labor  of  a  small  or  the 
skilful  management  of  a  large  household,  full  employ- 
ment for  time  and  thought,  under  the  cheering  shelter 
of  a  husband's  or  father's  smile.  That  was  a  pleasant 
time  also,  when,  in  the  middle  English  classes,  wo- 
men worked  freely  by  a  husband's  side,  with  more 
regard  to  his  interest  than  heed  of  the  world's  talk. 
But  with  the  wide  intellectual  culture  that  America 
has  been  the  first  country  in  the  world  to  offer  to 
women,  individual  tastes  and  wishes  must  develop  in 
single  women;  and  all  men  who  value  the  moral 
health  of  society  must  aid  this  development. 

There  is  no  greater  enemy  to  body  and  soul  than 
idleness,  unless  it  be  the  absurd  public  sentiment 
which  compels  to  idleness.  Thousands  and  tens  of 
thousands  have  fallen  victims  to  it.  The  woman  who 
will  not  labor,  rich  or  honored  though  she  be,  bends 
her  head  to  the  inevitable  curse  of  Heaven. 

This  curse  works  in  failing  health,  fading  beauty, 
broken  temper,  and  weary  days.  Let  her  never  fancy, 
that,  being  neither  wife  nor  mother,  she  is  exempt 
from  the  law:  she  cannot  balance  that  decree  of  God 
by  the  foolish  customs  of  society  or  the  weak  objec- 
tions of  her  kindred.  Never  let  her  say  she  does  not 
need  to  labor.  Disease,  depression,  moral  idiocy,  or 
inertia,  follow  on  an  idle  life.  He  who  never  rests  has 
made  woman  in  His  image;  and  health,  beauty,  force> 
and  influence  follow  on  the  steps  of  labor  alone. 


180  THE    MARKET. 

I  shall  not  pursue  this  subject;  for  it  is  far  easier 
for  you  to  think  it  out,  than  to  gather  the  facts  I  wish 
to  bring  before  you.  Read  "  Shirley, "  and  let  the  sad- 
dest hours  of  Caroline  Helstone's  life  bear  witness 
for  thousands  who  never  find  a  vocation.  Read  the 
'' Professor, "  and  let  its  sweet  stimulus  kindle  in  you 
some  appreciation  of  the  joy  which  mutual  labor  can 
bring  to  a  happy  husband  and  wife. 

Sad,  indeed,  then,  is  it  when  man  himself  represses 
a  woman's  longing  for  work,  whether  from  false  ten- 
derness, from  a  dread  of  public  opinion,  a  shrinking 
from  her  ultimate  independence,  or  a  small  personal 
jealousy.  That  he  does,  in  the  aggregate  and  as  an 
individual,  so  repress  it,  is  unfortunately  matter  of 
history:  it  is  no  invention  of  an  outraged  inferior.  I 
could  offer  you  many  private  examples  of  this;  but 
those  that  carry  proofs  of  their  reality  with  them  will, 
I  fear,  seem  very  famihar.  The  first  consists  in  the 
opposition  shown  to  the  attempt  of  Mr.  Bennett  to 
establish  young  women  as  watchmakers.  Honorary 
Secretary  to  the  Horological  Department  of  the  great 
Exhibition,  he  could  not  help  observing  the  superiority 
of  the  Genevese  watches,  in  cheapness  and  conve- 
nience of  carriage.  In  England,  watches  are  so  dear 
that  only  the  privileged  classes  can  carry  them.  It 
would  be  for  the  interests  of  the  manufacturers,  of 
course,  to  be  able  to  compete  with  the  Swiss;  but  they 
were  too  short-sighted  to  see  it.  Finding  that  twenty 
thousand  women  and  girls  were  employed  in  Switzer- 
land in  the  manufacture  of  watches  and  watchmakers' 


VERIFY   YOUR    CREDENTIALS.  181 

tools,  Mr.  Bennett  undertook  to  deliver  a  public  lec- 
ture on  the  subject.  It  was  interrupted  by  hisses,  and 
broken  up  like  a  New- York  convention.  Three  well- 
educated  women  then  applied  to  him  to  be  taught; 
but  no  Englishman  could  be  found  tatake  them.  A 
Swiss,  settled  in  London,  did.  They  made  more 
progress  in  six  months  than  ordinary  boys  in  six  years; 
but  they,  as  well  as  their  teacher,  were  so  cruelly  per- 
secuted, that  it  was  found  necessary  to  relinquish  the 
attempt.  My  impression  is,  though  I  cannot  find  the 
account  in  print,  that  a  further  effort  was  made  on 
a  more  extended  scale,  something  like  a  school;  and 
this  was  resisted  by  such  combined  effort  on  the  part 
of  the  trade,  that  Mr.  Bennett  and  his  friends  began 
to  make  a  stir  through  the  press.  The  '*  Edinburgh 
Review"  mentions  a  watchmaker's  wife  who  wished 
to  work  with  her  husband  in  his  special  department. 
Finding  that  it  could  not  be  done  with  the  consent  of 
the  trade,  she  undertook,  instead,  the  engraving  of  the 
brass  work;  but,  though  working  in  her  own  house, 
she  was  at  last  successful  only  under  the  plea  that  she 
had  been  regularly  apprenticed  by  her  father,  also  in 
the  business.  She  persevered,  and  taught  her  two 
daughters;  and  so  will  many  others. 

Women  in  England  must  certainly  make  watches; 
and  the  time  is  not  far  distant  when  the  men  of  Cov- 
entry will  yield  to  this  demand,  as  they  have  already 
yielded  to  others.  A  few  years  ago,  winding  silk, 
weaving  ribbon,  and  pasting  patterns  of  floss  upon 
cards,  excited  the  same  opposition;  but  now  thou- 


182  THE    MARKET. 

sands  of  women  pursue  these  employments,  and  the 
men  look  on  as  quietly  as  the  grazing  cattle  in  the 
fields. 

*'The  first  steam  factory  in  Coventry,"  says  the 
''Edinburgh  Review"  for  October,  1859, — "a  very 
small  factory, — was  burned  down  during  a  quarrel 
about  wages.  Then  there  was  an  opposition  to  the 
employment  of  women  at  the  looms.  To  this  day, 
one  of  the  lightest  and  easiest  processes  in  the  manu- 
facture, which  a  child  might  manage,  is  engrossed  by 
the  men,  under  heavy  penalties." 

Fancy  a  strong  man  winding  silk  for  a  whole  day, 
or  sorting  colors  in  floss!  How  has  he  ever  degraded 
himself  to  such  girls'  work? 

I  need  only  remind  you  of  the  formal  petition  sent 
in  at  the  time  of  the  opening  of  the  School  of  Design 
at  Marlborough  House,  to  entreat  the  Government  not 
to  instruct  and  aid  women,  lest  the  poor,  helpless  men 
should  starve!  A  similar  prejudice,  much  more  active 
than  any  in  America,  prevents  English  women  from 
qualifying  themselves  as  physicians.  Dr.  Spencer,  of 
Bristol,  really  educated  his  daughter  as  an  accou- 
cheuse; but  the  prejudice  was  so  strong  that  she  was 
not  allowed  to  practise,  and  became  a  governess  in- 
stead. The  same  prejudice  kept  the  English  Army 
suffering  for  months,  while  it  delayed  the  departure  of 
female  nurses  to  the  Crimea. 

In  Staffordshire,  women  are  employed  to  paint 
crockery  and  china,  which  they  can  do  with  more 
taste  and  grace  than  men.     It  seems  hardly  credible. 


VERIFY   YOUR    CREDENTIALS.  183 

that  the  desire  of  the  men  to  keep  down  their  wages 
should  deprive  the  females  of  the  customary  hand- 
rest  ;  which  would,  of  course,  diminish  the  fatigue,  and 
make  the  pencil-stroke  more  certain.  I  am  happy  to 
believe  that  not  an  employer  in  the  United  States 
would  submit  to  this  absurd  demand;  and  the  result 
of  any  such  attempt  on  the  part  of  workmen  would 
probably  be  a  general  permission  to  leave.  We  are, 
in  this  country,  much  more  free  from  the  control  of 
guilds  and  unions  of  various  sorts  than  the  people  of 
England;  yet  the  conduct  of  our  printers  furnishes  a 
fair  parallel  to  these  foreign  facts.  Within  a  few 
years,  there  have  been  more  than  twenty  strikes  in 
printing-offices,  consequent  upon  the  employment  of 
a  few  women;  and  the  result  has  generally  been  an 
entire  change  of  hands,  masters  in  America  not  en- 
during dictation. 

In  August  of  1854,  the  journeymen  employed  in 
the  office  of  the  ''Philadelphia  Daily  Register"  left 
the  office,  in  high  dudgeon,  because  the  publisher  had 
employed  two  women  as  type-setters  in  a  separate 
office.  They  acted  in  conformity  to  a  resolve  of  the 
Printers'  Union,  and  were  permitted  to  depart.  But 
this  was  not  all.  Threats  of  personal  violence  fol- 
lowed all  who  sought  the  waiting  work,  and  an  at- 
tempt was  made  to  cut  the  rope  by  which  the  forms 
are  raised.  The  result  would  have  been  to  break  up 
the  type,  prevent  the  issue  of  the  paper,  and  run  the 
risk  of  endangering  life.  Complaints  were  lodged 
against  the  printers;  and,  after  a  hearing,  they  were 


184  THE    MARKET. 

each  held  to  bail  in  six  hundred  dollars,  to  answer  to 
the  charge  of  conspiracy,  at  the  Court  of  Quarter 
Sessions. 

About  the  same  time,  a  printer  in  the  same  estab- 
lishment with  the  ''Lily,"  but  working  on  the  "Home 
Visitor, "  refused  to  give  some  necessary  instruction  to 
a  girl  employed  on  the  first  paper.  It  was  found  that 
all  the  hands  had  signed  an  agreement  never  to  work 
with  or  instruct  a  woman!  The  men,  after  proper 
remonstrance,  were  dismissed,  and  their  places  sup- 
plied by  four  women  and  three  men,  who  worked  har- 
moniously together.  That  was  only  five  years  ago, 
and  now  there  are  hundreds  of  female  printers  in 
Ohio;  and  one  orphan  girl  has  risen  from  type-setting 
to  an  editor's  chair  and  a  handsome  competence. 

Jealousy  in  America  sometimes  takes  a  more  corai- 
cal  form.  Coming  home  lately  from  a  Female  School 
of  Design  in  another  city,  I  expressed  some  disappoint- 
ment at  the  character  of  the  work  and  management. 
A  young  man  in  the  room  spoke  of  the  impossibility 
of  a  woman's  ever  learning  to  design,  in  terms  so 
contemptuous  that  I  did  not  think  it  worth  while  to 
answer  him.  Making  some  inquiries,  however,  in 
private,  I  found  his  master  had  often  reproached 
him  with  falling  behind  the  women  at  the  school;  so 
that  personal  pique  had  more  to  do  with  the  whole 
thing  than  any  real  experience.* 


*  When  I  first  began  to  lecture,  many  persons,  sincerely  interested  in  my 
success,  objected  to  what  they  called  the  "antagonistic"  tone  occasionally 
adopted.     They  thought  I  ought  to  take  for  granted  the  cheerful  co-operation 


VERIFY    YOUR    CREDENTIALS.  185 

But,  having  made  these  remarks,  I  must  recur  to 
my  previous  statement, — that,  in  the  main,  no  jeal- 
ousy of  cliques,  no  legal  restrictions,  prevent  women 
from  taking  their  proper  place.  A  want  of  respect 
for  woman,  and  a  want  of  respect  for  labor,  latent 
and  unacknowledged  in  the  public  mind,   must  be 


of  the  world,  and  that  the  woman's  cause  was  the  loser  whenever  the  audience 
was  reminded  of  actual  difficulties  in  the  way.  But  it  would  be  hardly  worth 
while  for  a  woman  to  enter  the  desk,  only  to  hedge  it  in  with  compromise  and 
evasion.  The  simple  truth  is  the  "utmost  skill"  she  needs  to  seek;  and  no 
reform  built  upon  an  inaccurate  survey  can  be  lasting.  Only  by  telling  our 
brothers  openly  what  we  think  of  their  jealousy  can  we  ever  hope  to  shame 
them  out  of  it.  That  the  day  of  opposition  is  not  passed;  that  the  way  of  duty 
cannot,  even  in  America,  be  trod  in  satin  slippers, — the  following  extract,  cut 
from  a  weekly  paper  while  I  am  writing  this  note,  will  plainly  show: — 

"The  Pennsylvania  Medical  Society  has  exhibited  a  narrow-mindedness 
altogether  disgraceful  to  its  members,  by  adopting  a  resolution  recommending 
'the  members  of  the  regular  profession  to  withhold  from  the  faculties  and  grad- 
uates of  Female  Medical  Colleges  all  countenance  and  support;  and  that  they 
cannot,  consistently  with  sound  medical  ethics,  consult  or  hold  professional  inter- 
course with  their  professors  or  alumni.'  The  Female  Medical  Colleges  of 
Pennsylvania,  it  should  be  remembered,  are  strictly  allopathic:  so  we  are  forced 
to  conclude,  that  the  objection  to  them  is  founded  solely  upon  the  fact  that 
they  afford  the  means  of  education  to  women.  We  echo  the  sentiment  of  the 
'Philadelphia  Sunday  Dispatch:'  'Shame  upon  the  men  who,  while  prating 
about  their  respectabiUty,  would  combine  to  rob  women  of  the  means  of  sup- 
porting themselves  and  their  families!  Such  infinitesimal  littleness  cannot 
benefit  them.  The  public  are  ever  willing  to  aid  the  weak,  and  support  them 
against  the  strong.  The  war  against  women  cannot  be  sustained  by  the  public 
voice:  it  will  recoil  upon  and  injure  those  who  are  so  arbitrary  and  selfish  as  to 
endeavor  to  interfere  with  them.'  " — Antislavery  Standard,  July,  1859. 

"The  medico-chirurgical  school  of  Lisbon  has  granted  the  diploma  of  phar- 
macienne  to  Mesdames  Maria  Fajardo  and  Carolina  de  Matos,  after  a  legal 
examination.  These  illustrations  ■pharmaceuticas  have  a  regular  knowledge  of 
their  business,  and  passed  a  preliminary  examination  in  1859.  'The  Gazette' 
does  not  say  if  they  are  religieuses  charged  with  the  management  of  a  private 
pharmacy,  or  whether  they  are  acting  as  civil  pharmaciennes.  In  one  of  the 
hospitals  of  the  city  is  a  female  dispenser,  whose  knowledge,  accuracy,  and  care 
are  said  to  be  reliable  and  satisfactory." 


186  THE   MARKET. 

overcome  before  she  can  do  it.  The  overworked  and 
ill-paid  woman  has  seized  every  chance  to  slight  her 
work;  and  an  idea  has  gone  abroad,  that  no  slopwork 
will  be  fit  for  sale  unless  a  man  inspects  it.  So  New 
York  and  Paris  have  man-tailors  and  man-milliners; 
and  the  poor,  tempted,  stricken  girls  are  brought  into 
contact,  in  the  pursuit  of  bread,  with  the  very  men 
most  likely  to  take  advantage  of  every  failure.  Very 
sad  stories  could  be  told  of  work  rejected  day  after 
day,  on  account  of  pretended  faults,  till  the  starving 
victim  drops  at  the  feet  of  the  treacherous  overseer, 
only  to  be  trampled,  in  the  end,  under  those  of  the 
whole  town.  Educated,  respectable  women  should 
have  the  giving-out  and  the  inspection  of  woman's 
work;  but  educated  and  respectable  women  will  never 
stand  in  such  a  position  till  public  opinion  teaches 
them  that  all  labor  is  honorable,  and  that  no  lady  will 
ever  sit  with  folded  hands.  How  we  rate  an  idle  boy! 
how  we  bear  with  a  dawdling  girl!  That  father 
grows  impatient  whose  son  does  not  rise  early,  or 
show  some  desire  for  employment;  but  the  same  man 
keeps  his  daughters  in  Berlin  wool  and  yellow  novels, 
and  looks  to  marriage  as  their  salvation,  even  when 
he  blushes  to  be  told  of  it. 

To  prove  this,  let  me  show  you  that  many  employ- 
ments have  been  open  to  a  degree  not  generally  ac- 
knowledged; and  a  safe  foundation  for  this  assertion 
will  be  found  in  the  census  of  the  United  Kingdom 
and  that  of  the  United  States. 

It  is  a  singular  fact,  that  there  are  a  great  many 


VERIFY   YOUR    CREDENTIALS.  187 

more  women  in  England  in  business  for  themselves 
than  employed  as  tenders  or  clerks;  while,  in  America, 
the  fact,  at  the  present  day,  is  directly  the  reverse. 

It  was  not  so  in  the  time  of  the  Revolution.  Then, 
as  in  France,  the  men  went  to  the  war.  Women  of 
shrewdness  and  ability  managed  their  husbands'  af- 
fairs,— the  shops  and  trades  of  the  nation, — and 
grew  so  independent  thereby,  that  even  Mrs.  John 
Adams  had  to  rebuke  her  husband  for  the  absurd 
inequalities  of  privilege  which  his  new  government 
sustained.  In  England,  the  deficient  education  of 
the  lower  classes  makes  it  almost  impossible  for  the 
women  to  make  change  quickly,  or  keep  accounts; 
and  we  smile  as  we  find  the  "Edinburgh  Review" 
gravely  contending  that  woman  may  master  the  rule 
of  three;  that,  at  least,  they  ought  to  have  a  chance 
to  try:  and  we  can  afford  to  smile;  for  our  public 
schools  have  taught  us  how  much  quicker  most  wo- 
men can  count  than  most  men.  While,  therefore,  the 
want  of  education  has  prevented  a  certain  class  of 
English  women  from  becoming  clerks  or  book-keepers, 
the  national  habits  of  thrift,  and  a  certain  respectable 
pride  in  a  family  shop  or  trade,  have  induced  thou- 
sands of  a  superior  class  to  assume,  upon  a  father's  or 
husband's  death,  the  charge  of  his  establishment,  and 
so  secure  a  competence  for  the  heirs.  This  is  what 
we  could  wish  our  women  to  do.  We  all  know  how 
frequently  the  whole  social  position  of  a  family  here 
changes  with  the  death  of  its  head.  Let  our  women 
prevent  this  for  the  future,  by  cherishing  a  natural 


188  THE    MAKKET. 

ambition  to  do  for  their  children  what  the  fathers  of 
those  children  would  have  done. 

The  last  census  of  the  United  Kingdom  shows, 
that,  while  the  female  population  has  increased  in 
such  proportion  that  there  are  now  eight  women  where 
there  were  seven,  there  are  eight  working  women  where 
there  were  only  six;  that  is,  there  are  more  new 
workers  than  new  women.  There  are  1,250,000  wo- 
men earning  their  own  bread  as  independently  as  any 
men.     Of  these,  there  are — 

385,000  employed  in  Textile  manufactures, 
40,000  in  Metal-works,  and 
128,418  in  Agriculture. 

I  hope  these  statements  will  not  seem  useless  and 
superficial  to  you. 

This  hour  cannot  be  better  employed  than  in  open- 
ing to  you  some  of  the  mysteries  of  woman's  work  in 
England. 

Among  the  128,418  women  employed  in  Agricul- 
ture, there  are  64,000  dairy- women;  not  women  who 
tend  a  single  cow  for  a  single  family,  but  women  of 
muscle,  who  wield  large  tubs  and  heavy  presses,  who 
turn  cheeses  and  slap  butter  by  the  hundred- weight. 
Then  there  are  market-gardeners,  who  not  only  raise 
their  stock,  but  drive  it  to  the  town  for  sale;  bee- 
mistresses  and  florists,  of  whom  there  are  many 
among  the  Quakers;  flax-producers,  who  not  only 
raise  the  pretty  blue-eyed  flowers,  but  beat  the  sili- 
cious   fibres   apart;   and   they  are  followed  by  hay- 


VERIFY   YOUR    CREDENTIALS.  189 

makers,  reapers,  and  hop-pickers,  gracefully  garland- 
ing the  group. 

Naturally  connected  with  this  first  interest  of  the 
soil  is  the  second,  or  Mining.  It  is  no  longer  con- 
sidered fit  for  women  to  work  in  shafts,  though  the 
need  of  bread  forces  many  to  evade  the  law.  The 
census,  however,  cannot  touch  them :  the  seven  thou- 
sand women  it  reports  as  engaged  in  Mining  are 
employed  in  dressing  and  sorting  ore,  and  as  washers 
and  strainers  of  clay  for  the  potteries, — heavy  and 
disagreeable  if  not  unfit  work. 

The  next  largest  interest  is  that  of  the  Fisheries. 
The  Pilchard  fishery  employs  many  thousands  of 
women.  Jersey  oysters  alone  employ  over  one  thou- 
sand.    Then  come  the — 

Herring, 
Cod, 
Whale,  and 

Lobster  fisheries. 

The  work  in  connection  with  the  whale  fishery  con- 
sists chiefly  in  what  is  done  after  the  cargo  is  landed. 
Apart  from  the  Christie  Johnstones, — the  aristocrats 
of  the  trade, — the  sea  nurtures  an  heroic  class,  like 
Grace  Darling,  who  stand  aghast,  as  she  did,  when 
society  rewards  a  deed  of  humanity,  and  cry  out  in 
expostulation,  ''Why,  every  girl  on  the  coast  would 
have  done  as  I  did!" 

In  natural  connection  with  these  come  the — 

Kelp-bumers,  the 
Netters,  and  the 
Bathers, 


190  THE    MARKET. 

or  women  who  manage  the  bathing  machines  used 

on  the   coast.     Then   come  two   hundred  thousand 

female  servants;  of  which,  largest  in  number,  shortest 

in  life,  and,  of  course,  the  worst  paid,  are  the  general 

housemaids,  or   unhappy  servants-of -all- work.     Then 

come — 

Brewers, 

Custom-house  and  Police  searchers, 

Matrons  of  jails, 

Lighthouse-keepers,  and 

Pew-openers. 

I  cannot  mention  the  Matrons  of  jails,  without  a  sigh, 
when  I  remember,  that  at  our  common  jail  and  at 
Charlestown  there  is  no  proper  matron;  and  sickness, 
death,  and  childbirth  meet  only  with  such  care  as 
women  detained  as  witnesses,  or  inebriates,  can  offer. 
Surely  a  Christian  community  should  furnish  Chris- 
tian, womanly  ministrations  to  its  prisoners;  and  I 
would  that  some  noble  soul  in  an  able  body  might 
be  found  to  take  up  this  work!  Pew-opening  has 
never  been  a  trade  in  this  community;  but,  as  there 
are  signs  that  it  may  become  so,  I  advise  our  women 
to  keep  an  eye  upon  it! 

There  are  in  the  United  Kingdom — 

500,000  business-women, 
94,000  shoemakers'  wives, 
27,000  victuallers'  wives, 
26,000  butcheresses, 
14,000  milk-women, 
10,000  beershop-keepers, 

9,000  innkeeprs,  and 

8,000  hack  proprietors. 


VERIFY   YOUR    CREDENTIALS.  191 

The   difference   between   the   employers   and   the 

employed  is  shown  in  the  following  numbers.     There 

are — 

29,000  shopkeepers,  and  only 
1,742  shopwomen; 

since  the  lower  class  of  English  women  are  seldom 
taught  writing  or  accounts. 

Telegraphic  Reporters,  Phonographers,  and  Rail- 
way-clerks, are  on  the  increase.  In  reporting  the 
Bright  Festival  at  Manchester  last  year,  the  speed 
and  accuracy  of  the  young  women  were  thought  very 
remarkable.  Six  whole  columns  were  transmitted  at 
the  rate  of  twenty-nine  words  a  minute,  almost  with- 
out mistake,  although  the  subject  of  the  speeches  was 
political,  and  so  supposed  to  be  beyond  their  com- 
prehension ! 

Several  railways  employ  women  as  clerks  and 
ticket-sellers,  and  the  results  are  more  than  satisfac- 
tory. Thus  far  the  census;  which  has  not  been  with- 
out its  interest,  since,  in  English  parlance,  shoemaker- 
wife  means  not  merely  the  wife  of  a  shoemaker,  but 
a  wife  who  shares  her  husband's  labor,  or  has  suc- 
ceeded to  it  on  his  death.  Butcher-wife  also  means 
a  woman  who  can  buy  and  sell  stock,  pickle  meat, 
and  perhaps  drive  a  cart  through  the  town. 

Now  for  the  results  of  some  private  letters.  When 
I  spoke  of  forty  thousand  Metal-workers,  your  minds 
did  not  revert,  I  trust,  to  those  dens  at  Wiltenhall, 
where  women  have  been  struck  with  hammers,  files, 
and  even  bars  of  iron  glowing  at  a  white  heat. 


192  THE    MARKET. 

Now,  at  least,  let  us  visit  a  pleasanter  scene.  A 
man  has  forged  and  rolled  out  the  sheet  which  is  soon 
to  pass  for  a  hundred  gross  of  Gillott's  pens;  but  a 
woman  cuts  and  bends  and  stamps,  grinds,  splits, 
polishes,  and  packs  it,  so  that  her  sisters  may  have 
pleasure  in  the  using. 

It  was  at  Birmingham  that  your  gold  chain  was 
made.  A  man's  strength  drew  out  the  precious  wire; 
but  hundreds  of  young  girls  cut  it  to  the  required 
length,  shaped  it  on  a  metal  die  to  the  required  pat- 
tern, soldered  it  invisibly  over  a  jet  of  gas-light, 
ground  the  facets  till  they  gleamed  and  polished  the 
whole  length  to  tempt  the  gazer's  eye.  Quiet,  dili- 
gent, skilful,  tidy,  they  sit;  with  polished  slippers 
bobbing  along  the  floor;  not  quite  so  healthy  as 
those  who  labor  on  the  pens,  for  the  gas  and  solder 
do  an  unwholesome  work.  Others  burnish  the  silver 
plate,  sort  needles,  paint  iron  and  papier-mache  trays; 
and  hundreds  more  are  busy  cutting  and  polishing 
screws, — a  work  mainly  in  their  hands,  because 
men  cannot  be  trusted  with  the  delicate  manipula- 
tion. 

There  is  a  covered  button,  my  brother,  on  your 
coat.  Women  cut  the  metal,  the  cloth  cover,  the 
paper  stuffing,  the  silk  lining;  a  child  piles  these  in 
proper  order;  and,  by  one  stroke  of  a  magic  press, 
a  woman  throws  them  out  a  finished  button. 

One  young  girl  in  London  began  life  by  designing 
for  such  buttons,  till  she  found  that  she  had  a  soul 
above  them,  and  cheerfully  entered  an  artistic  career. 


VERIFY   YOUR    CREDENTIALS.  193 

Nail-cutting  and  hook-and-eye  making  employ  oth- 
ers; and,  if  we  take  a  book  into  our  hand,  women 
follow  us  through  all  the  stages  of  its  manufacture. 
A  woman  cut  and  cleaned  the  rags,  counted  the 
sheets  of  paper,  and  set  off  the  reams;  a  woman  may 
have  set  the  types;  perhaps  some  worn-out  seamstress 
wrote  the  verses,  or  a  female  physician  composed  the 
thesis:  a  woman  may  print,  a  woman  certainly  will 
fold  it  down  and  stitch  it  for  the  binder.  A  woman 
will  engrave  on  wood  its  illustrations,  or  color  in  her 
own  home  its  fine  photographs  or  drawings:  at  the 
very  last,  her  white  hand  will  touch  with  gleams  of 
gold  its  tinted  edges  or  many-hued  envelope. 

It  is  women  who  pack  cards  and  throw  off  dam- 
aged paper.  I  have  not  obtained  any  reliable  account 
of  English  female  card-makers;  but  there  must  be 
many.  In  an  old  Nuremberg  rate-book  are  the  names 
of  ''Elizabeth  and  Margaret,"  Karten-mdcherin,  re- 
ported in  1436  and  1438.  Cards  were  invented  in 
1361.  In  about  seventy  years,  therefore,  the  manu- 
facture had  passed  into  woman's  hand.  In  my  notes 
from  the  census,  I  find  no  mention  of  wood-engravers : 
but,  in  1839,  Charlotte  Nesbit,  Marianne  Williams, 
Mary  Byfield,  Mary  and  Elizabeth  Clint,  held  honor- 
able positions  among  English  wood-engravers;  while, 
at  the  close  of  the  last  century,  Elizabeth  Blackwell 
executed  botanical  plates,  and  Angelica  Kauffman 
engraved  on  steel,  to  the  satisfaction  of  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds.  In  London,  recently,  one  accomplished  fe- 
male  engraver   has   turned   her   steel   plates   into   a 

17 


194  THE    MARKET. 

pleasant  country-house,  which  she  means  to  fur- 
nish with  the  proceeds  of  her  delicate  painting  on 
glass. 

A  whole  volume  might  be  written  concerning  Eng- 
lish female  printers.  Turning  over  some  old  books 
the  other  day  in  the  Antiquarian  Rooms  at  Worces- 
ter, I  came  upon  Elizabeth  Bathurst's  ''Truth  Vindi- 
cated," printed  and  sold  by  Mary  Hinde,  at  No.  2  in 
George's  Yard,  Lombard  Street,  1774.  A  little  far- 
ther along,  I  found  Sophia  Hume's  ''Letters  to  South 
Carolina,"  printed  and  sold  by  Luke  Hinde,  at  the 
Bible  in  George's  Yard,  Lombard  Street,  1752.  Good 
Quaker  books,  both  of  them;  and  the  titlepag-es  bold 
a  pleasant  story.  Here,  at  the  sign  of  the  Bible, 
Luke  Hinde  carried  on  his  work  in  1752.  When  he 
died,  his  widow  kept  the  establishment  open,  and 
taught  her  girls  to  stand  at  the  forms;  so,  twenty-two 
years  after  (in  1774),  the  place  goes  on  in  her  name. 
No  change;  only  some  dissenting  wind  has  blown 
down  the  Old  Bible,  and  a  gilded  number  two  shines 
in  its  stead.  It  is  the  history  of  half  the  business- 
women in  England,  and  a  very  creditable  history  for 
Mary  Hinde. 

On  those  dishes  of  Liverpool  ware  are  pretty  pic- 
tures in  gray  ink.  Women  took  them  wet  from  the 
copperplate,  and,  laying  them  along  the  biscuit,  car- 
ried it  to  the  furnace;  there  the  paper  burns  away: 
while  others  paint  and  gild,  or,  with  hideous  clatter 
of  blood-stones,  polish  off  the  finer  ware. 

In  the  next  street,  hundreds  of  women  make  paper- 


VERIFY    YOUR    CREDENTIALS.  195 

bags  and  pill-boxes,  without  wasting  a  square  inch  of 
material. 

Not  long  ago,  two  young  girls,  whose  father's  clerk- 
ship was  ill  paid,  took  to  making  artificial  teeth,  and 
succeeded  so  well  as  to  obtain  constant  orders  and  a 
competence.  More  cheering  still:  a  young  servant, 
with  strong  elbows,  took  to  French  polishing,  and 
gave  desk  and  work-box  and  inlaid  cabinet  a  gloss 
that  no  varnish  of  man  could  match.  For  two  or 
three  years  she  made  contracts  with  upholsterers,  and 
kept  herself  in  profitable  work:  then  Cupid  pinched 
the  strong  elbows,  and  she  slipped  out  of  permanent 
reputation  as  a  cabinetmaker's  wife. 

In  brushmaking,  women  sort  the  hair,  and  set  it  in 
the  holes.  The  delicate,  cone-like  arrangement  of  the 
badger's  hair,  in  the  modem  shaving-brush,  can  be 
made  only  by  a  woman's  hand;  and  she  who  has 
skill  to  do  it  well  may  ask  her  own  wages. 

Then  there  are  glove-cleaners;  women  who  strain 
silk,  in  fluting,  across  the  old-fashioned  work-bag  or 
the  parlor-organ  front;  women  who  shell  pease  and 
beans  at  so  much  a  quart,  and  who  make  the  thou- 
sands of  baskets  for  the  fruiterer's  stall.  Passing  the 
white-lead  factory  at  meal-times,  you  will  see  fifty 
women  file  away,  whose  duty  it  is  to  pile  the  lead  for 
oxidation;  and  thousands,  very  different  from  these; 
sit  making  artificial  flowers,  many  of  them  cheap 
enough,  but  others,  from  their  exquisite  grace  and 
naturalness,  bringing  the  artist's  own  price. 

I  have  purposely  dwelt  on  all  these  avocations.     As 


196  THE    MARKET. 

you  have  followed  me,  has  it  seemed  to  you  that  we 
wanted  more  avenues  for  manual  labor?  As  many 
as  you  please.  We  are  bound  to  inherit  the  whole 
earth.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  what  is  most  needed 
is,  first,  respect  for  woman  as  a  laborer,  and  then 
respect  for  labor  itself. 

When  men  respect  women  as  human  beings,  conse- 
quently as  laborers,  they  will  pay  them  as  good  wages 
as  men;  and  then  unconimon  skill  or  power  to  work 
will  be  set  free  from  the  old  forcing-pump  and  siphon, 
and  we  shall  see  what  women  can  do.  When  men 
respect  labor, — respect  it  so  far,  that  they  hold  a 
woman  honored  when  she  seeks  it, — then  women  of 
a  higher  rank  will  seek  to  invest  their  capital  in  mer- 
cantile experiments;  will  establish  factories  or  work- 
shops; will  organize  groups  of  struggling  sisters;  and 
the  class  that  most  needs  to  be  helped,  the  idle  rich, 
will  find  happiness  and  honor,  will  find  help,  in  offer- 
ing opportunities  to  the  lowest. 

What  the  lowest  class  of  women  need  is  active 
brains  to  plan  and  think  for  them.  There  are  plenty 
of  these  active  brains  at  the  West  End,  tingling  with 
neuralgia,  hot  with  idleness,  dizzy  with  waltzing. 
Offer  a  government  testimonial  to  the  first  girl  of 
rank  who  will  carry  her  brains  to  a  market,  and  you 
will  see  what  a  throng  of  aspirants  we  shall  have; 
letting  it  be  understood,  mind  you,  that  the  public 
feeling  sustains  the  government  testimonial. 

Let  us  ask,  then,  a  few  questions  about  the  state 
of  female  labor  in  the  United  States.     Our  census  is 


VERIFY    YOUR    CREDENTIALS.  197 

by  no  means  so  complete  as  that  of  Great  Britain;, 
and  our  statements  will,  therefore,  be  less  accurate. 

At  the  close  of  the  Revolution,  there  were  in  New 
England,  and  perhaps  farther  south,  many  women 
conducting  large  business  establishments,  and  few 
females  employed  as  clerks,  partly  because  we  were 
still  English,  and  had  not  lost  English  habits.  Men 
went  to  the  war  or  the  General  Court,  and  their 
wives  soon  learned  to  carry  on  the  business  upon 
which  not  only  the  family  bread,  but  the  fate  of  the 
nation,  depended;  while  our  common  schools  had 
not  yet  begun  to  fit  women  for  book-keepers  and 
clerks. 

The  Island  of  Nantucket  was,  at  the  close  of  the 
war,  a  good  example  of  the  whole  country.  Great 
destitution  existed  on  the  establishment  of  peace. 
The  men  began  the  whale  fishery  with  redoubled 
energy:  some  fitted  out  and  others  manned  the  ships; 
while  the  women  laid  aside  distaff  and  loom  to  attend 
to  trade.  A  very  interesting  letter  from  Mrs.  Eliza 
Barney  to  Mr.  Higginson  gives  me  many  particulars. 
''Fifty  years  ago,"  she  says,  "all  the  dry-goods  and 
groceries  were  kept  by  women,  who  went  to  Boston 
semi-annually  to  renew  their  stock.  The  heroine 
of  'Miriam  Coffin'  was  one  of  the  most  influential 
of  our  commercial  women.  She  not  only  traded  in 
dry-goods  and  provisions,  but  fitted  vessels  for  the 
merchant  service.  Since  that  time,  I  can  recall  near 
seventy  women  who  have  successfully  engaged  in 
commerce,  brought  up  and  educated  large  families^ 


198  THE    MARKET. 

and  retired  with  a  competence.  It  was  the  influence 
of  capitalists  from  the  Continent  that  drove  the 
Nantucket  women  out  of  the  trade;  and  they  only- 
resumed  it  a  few  years  since,  when  the  California 
emigration  made  it  necessary.  Five  dry-goods  and 
a  few  large  groceries  are  now  carried  on  by  women, 
as  also  one  druggist's  shop.''  Mrs.  Gaskell,  in  her 
"Life  of  Charlotte  Bronte,"  mentions  a  woman  Uving 
as  a  druggist,  I  think,  at  Haworth;  and  I  have  always 
been  surprised  that  this  business  was  not  left  to 
women.  Our  Nantucket  druggist  is  doing  well.  In 
Pennsylvania,  the  Quaker  view  of  the  duties  and 
rights  of  women  contributed  to  throw  many  into 
trade  at  the  same  period.  One  lady  in  Philadelphia 
transferred  a  large  wholesale  business  to  two  nephews, 
and  died  wealthy.  I  saw  a  letter  the  other  day, 
which  gave  an  interesting  account  of  two  girls  who 
got  permission  there  to  sell  a  little  stock  in  their 
father's  shop.  One  began  with  sixty-two  cents, 
which  she  invested  in  a  dozen  tapes.  The  other  had 
three  dollars.  In  a  few  years,  they  bought  their 
father  out.  The  little  tape-seller  married,  and  carried 
her  husband  eight  thousand  dollars;  while  the  single 
sister  kept  on  till  she  accumulated  twenty  thousand 
dollars,  and  took  a  poor  boy  into  partnership. 

I  have  spoken  of  English  female  printers.  The 
first  paper  ever  issued  in  Rhode  Island  was  printed 
by  a  brother  of  Dr.  Franklin,  at  Newport.  He  died 
early,  and  his  widow  continued  the  work.  She  was 
aided  by  her  two  daughters,  swift  and  correct  com- 


VERIFY   YOUR    CREDENTIALS.  199 

positors.  She  was  made  printer  to  the  Colony,  and, 
in  1745,  printed  an  edition  of  the  laws,  in  346  folio 
pages.  That  she  found  time  to  do  something  else, 
you  may  judge  from  this  advertisement: — 

"The  printer  hereof  prints  linens,  calicoes,  silk,  &c.,  in  figures, 
in  lively  and  durable  colors,  without  the  offensive  smell  which 
commonly  attends  linen  printed  here." 

Margaret  Draper  printed  the  "Boston  News  Let- 
ter," and  was  so  good  a  Tory  that  the  English  Gov- 
ernment pensioned  her  when  the  war  drove  her  away. 
Clementina  Bird  edited  and  printed  the  "Virginia 
Gazette,"  and  Thomas  Jefferson  wrote  for  her  paper. 
Penelope  Russell  also  printed  the  "Censor,"  in  Bos- 
ton, in  1771. 

When  we  record  these  things,  and  think  how 
women  are  pressing  into  printing-offices  in  our  time, 
it  is  pleasant  to  find  a  generous  action  to  sustain  them. 
At  a  recent  Printers*  Convention  held  in  Springfield, 
111.,  the  following  resolution  was  adopted: — 

'' Whereas,  The  employment  of  females  in  printing-offices  as 
compositors  has,  wherever  adopted,  been  found  a  decided  benefit 
as  regards  moral  influence  and  steady  work,  and  also  as  offering 
better  wages  to  a  deserving  class;  therefore,  be  it — 

"Resolved,  That  this  Association  recommends  to  its  members 
the  employment  of  females  whenever  practicable." 

Mrs.  Barney  tells  us  that  failures  were  very  un- 
common in  Nantucket  while  women  managed  the 
business;  and  some  of  the  largest  and  safest  fortunes 
in  Boston  were  founded  by  women,  one  of  whom,  I 


200  THE    MARKET. 

remember,  rode  in  her  own  chariot,  and  kept  fifty 
thousand  dollars  in  gold  in  the  chimney  corner,  lest 
the  banks  should  not  be  as  cautious  in  their  dealings 
as  herself.  While  writing  these  pages,  I  have  visited 
such  a  woman,  still  living  in  Prince  Street,  at  the  age 
of  ninety-five.  Her  name  is  Hillman.  She  lived  for 
sixty-four  years  in  the  same  house,  and  made  her 
property  by  a  large  grocery  business,  and  speculations 
on  a  strip  of  real  estate.  Her  father,  Mr.  William 
Haggo,  was  a  nautical-instrument  maker;  and  she  has 
a  very  remarkable  head,  and  as  conservative  a  horror 
of  modern  changes— steam-bakeries,  for  instance — 
as  any  of  you  could  wish.*  Some  of  you  will  remem- 
ber the  two  sisters  Johnson,  who,  for  more  than  half 
a  century,  kept  a  crockery-shop  on  Hanover  Street, 
and  separated  about  two  years  ago, — one  sister 
to  retire  on  her  earnings;  the  other  to  rest  in  a  quiet 
grave,  at  the  age  of  fourscore.  The  spirit  of  modern 
improvement  has  since  seized  hold  of  the  old  shop. 

It  was  one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  our  fe- 
male merchants — Martha  Buckminster  Curtis — who 
planted,  in  Framingham,  the  first  potatoes  ever  set  in 
New  England;  and  you  will  start  to  hear  that  our 
dear  and  honored  friend  Ann  Bent  entered  on  her 
business  career  so  long  ago  as  1784,  at  the  age  of  six- 


*  I  first  saw  Mrs.  Hillman  the  day  after  the  destruction  of  the  steam-bakery 
at  the  North  End.  She  was  sitting  up,  reading  the  account  of  it,  without  glasses^ 
and  eloquent  in  behalf  of  the  trade,  and  against  innovations.  Since  the  above 
passage  was  written,  she  has  passed  away. 


VERIFY  YOUR  CREDENTIALS.  201 

teen.  She  first  entered  a  crockery-ware  and  dry-goods 
firm;  but,  at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  established  her- 
self in  Washington,  north  of  Summer  Street,  where 
we  remember  her.  She  soon  became  the  centre  of  a 
happy  home,  where  sisters,  cousins,  nieces,  and  young 
friends  received  her  affectionate  care.  The  intimacy 
which  linked  her  name  to  that  of  Mary  Ware  is  fresh 
in  all  our  minds.  What  admirable  health  she  con- 
trived to  keep  we  may  judge  from  the  fact,  that  she 
dined  at  one  brother's  table  on  Thanksgiving  Day  for 
over  fifty  years.  She  was  the  valued  friend  of  Chan- 
ning  and  Gannett;  and  her  character  magnified  her 
office,  ennobled  her  condition,  gave  dignity  to  labor, 
and  won  the  love  and  respect  of  all  the  worthy. 
Less  than  two  years  ago,  at  the  age  of  ninety,  she 
left  us;  but  I  wished  to  mention  both  her  and  Miss 
Kinsley  in  this  connection,  because  they  were  the  first 
women  in  our  society  to  confer  a  merchantable  value 
upon  taste. 

Instead  of  importing  largely  themselves,  they  bought 
of  the  New- York  importers  the  privilege  of  selection, 
and  always  took  the  prettiest  and  nicest  pieces  out  of 
every  case.  As  they  paid  for  this  privilege  themselves, 
so'  they  charged  their  customers  for  it,  by  asking  a 
little  more  on  each  yard  of  goods  than  the  common 
dealer. 

I  know  nothing  for  which  it  is  pleasanter  to  pay 
than  for  taste.  When  time  is  precious  (and  to  all 
serious  people  it  soon  becomes  so),  it  is  a  comfort  to 
go  to  one  counter,  sure  that  in  ten  minutes  you  can 


202  THE    MAKKET. 

purchase  what  it  would  take  a  whole  morning  to  win- 
now from  the  countless  shelves  of  the  town. 

Scientific  pursuits  cannot  be  said  to  be  fairly  opened 
to  women  here.  The  two  ladies  at  work  on  the 
Coast  Survey  were  employed  by  special  favor,  and 
probably  on  account  of  near  relationship  to  the  gen- 
tleman who  had  charge  of  the  department  of  latitudes 
and  longitudes.  Their  work  is  done  at  home.  Some 
years  ago,  Congress  made  an  appropriation  for  an 
American  nautical  almanac;  and  Lieut.  Davis  was 
appointed  to  take  charge  of  it.  Three  ladies  were  at 
one  time  employed  upon  the  lunar  tables.  Lieut. 
Davis  told  one  of  them  that  he  preferred  the  women's 
work,  because  it  was  quite  as  accurate,  and  much 
more  neat,  than  the  men's.  In  1854,  Maria  Mitchell 
was  employed  in  computing  for  this  almanac,  with 
the  same  salary  that  would  be  given  to  a  man.  I 
may  say,  in  this  connection,  that  a  great  number  of 
female  clerks  have  been  employed  in  Washington  for 
many  years.  The  work  has  generally  been  obtained 
by  women  who  had  lost  a  husband  or  a  father  in  the 
service  of  his  country;  and,  I  am  proud  to  say,  such 
women  have  usually  been  paid  the  same  wages  as 
men.  During  Mr.  Fillmore's  administration,  t\^o 
women  wrote  for  the  Treasury,  on  salaries  of  twelve 
hundred  and  fifteen  hundred  dollars  a  year;  but  the 
succeeding  administration  reformed  this  abuse,  and 
very  few  are  now  at  work. 

In  1845,  there  were  employed  in  the  Textile  manu- 
factures of  the  United  States,  55,828  men  and  75,710 


VERIFY   YOUR   CREDENTIALS. 


203 


women.  This  proportion,  or  a  still  greater  prepon- 
derance of  female  labor, — that  is,  from  one-third  to 
one-half, — appears  in  all  the  factory  returns.  As  an 
employed  class,  women  seem  to  be  more  in  number 
than  men:  as  employers,  they  are  very  few.  The 
same  census  reports  them  as — 


Makers  of  gloves, 

Makers  of  glue, 

Workers  in  gold  and  silver  leaf, 

Hair  weavers, 

Hat  and  cap  makers, 

Hose-weavers 

Workers  in  India-rubber, 

Lamp-makers, 

Laundresses, 

Leechers, 

Milliners, 

Morocco-workers, 

Nurses, 

Paper-hangers, 


Physicians, 

Picklers  and  preservers, 
Saddle  and  harness  makers, 
Shoemakers, 
Soda-room  keepers. 
Snuff  and  cigar  makers, 
Stock  and  suspender  makers. 
Truss-makers, 
Typers  and  stereotypers, 
Umbrella-makers, 
Upholsterers, 
Card-makers,  and 
Grinders  of  watch  crystals. 
7,000  women  in  aU. 


There  is  no  mention  of  female  wood-engravers, 
though  we  have  had  such  for  twenty-five  years;  and 
pupils  from  the  Schools  of  Design  have  already 
achieved  a  certain  success  in  this  direction.  To  the 
enumeration  of  the  census,  I  may  add,  from  my  own 
observation, — 


Photographists  and    daguerro- 

typists, 
Phonographers, 
House  and  sign  painters, 
Button-makers, 
Fruit-hawkers, 


Tobacco-packers, 
Paper-box  makers, 
Embroiderers, 
Fur-sewers;    and,    at    the 

West, 
Reapers  and  hay-makers. 


204 


THE    MARKET. 


In  a  New  Haven  clock  factory,  seven  women  are 
employed  among  seventy  men,  on  half- wages ;  and 
the  manufacturer  takes  great  credit  to  himself  for  his 
liberality.  At  Waltham,  also,  a  watch  factory  has 
been  lately  started,  in  which  many  women  are  em- 
ployed.* In  the  census  of  the  city  of  Boston  for 
1845,  the  various  employments  of  women  are  thus 
given : — 


Artificial-flower  makers, 

Boardinghouse-keepers, 

Bookbinders, 

Printers, 

Blank-book  makers, 

Bonnet-dealers, 

Bonnet-makers, 

Workers  in  straw. 

Shoe  and  boot  makers. 

Band  and  fancy  box  makers, 

Brush-makers, 

Cap-makers, 

Clothiers, 

Collar-makers, 


Comb-makers, 

Confectioners, 

Corset-dealers, 

Corset-makers, 

Card-makers, 

Professed  cooks, 

Cork-cutters, 

Domestics, 

Dress-makers, 

Match-makers, 

Fringe  and  tassel  makers. 

Fur-sewers, 

Hair-cloth  weavers,  and 

Map-colorers. 


*  I  do  not  dwell  upon  this  watch  factory  in  the  text,  because,  although  fifty 
women  are  at  work  with  one  hundred  and  fifty  men,  they  are  only  "tending 
machines;"  so  that,  although  employment  is  open,  a  career  can  hardly  be  said 
to  be.  The  watches  made  at  Waltham  by  machinery  axe  said  to  be  so  superior 
to  all  others,  that  they  are  used  by  preference  on  the  race-courses  to  time  the 
horses.  Men  and  women  do  not  compete  with  each  other  there;  but  both  are 
at  service,  with  a  steam-engine  for  their  master. 

For  the  first  two  months,  the  women  earn  two  dollars  and  fifty  cents  a  week; 
for  the  third,  three  dollars;  and,  after  that,  four  dollars.  The  men  earn  from 
five  shillings  to  two  dollars  a  day.  It  seems  that  no  special  skill  is  required  in 
the  women,  while  the  men  in  a  few  departments  are  still  paid  according  to  their 
abiUty.  The  steam-engine,  it  appears,  has  not  yet  learned  how  to  cook  dials! 
In  this  case,  the  operator  must  hold  the  dial,  turning  it  evenly,  as  if  he  were  a 
smoke-stack,  which  requires  judgment  and  "faculty"! 


VERIFY    YOUR    CREDENTIALS.  205 

I  think  you  cannot  fail  to  see,  from  this  list,  how 
very  imperfect  the  enumeration  is :  not  a  single  wash- 
erwoman nor  charwoman,  for  one  thing,  upon  it. 
Yet  here  you  have  the  occupations  of  4,970  women. 
Of  these,  4,046  are  servants, — a  number  which  has, 
at  least,  doubled  since  theli;  and  which  leaves  only 
924  women  for  all  other  avocations. 

In  New  York,  Mr.  Jobson,  formerly  surgeon-dentist 
to  Victoria,  offers  to  instruct  women  in  the  duties  of 
a  dentist.  I  do  not  know  that  he  has  a  single  practis- 
ing pupil;  but  he  asserts  that  some  of  the  most  distin- 
guished dentists  in  Europe  are  women.  A  few  years 
since,  the  town  of  Ashfield  elected  two  women  and 
three  men  to  the  duties  of  a  School  Committee, — 
duties  for  which  women  are  greatly  to  be  preferred. 
A  letter  from  the  senior  lady  shows  that  one  of  them  at 
least  never  attempted  to  do  the  actual  work  to  which 
she  was  called,  considering  it  out  of  her  sphere !  Does 
any  one  in  this  audience  suppose  that  those  women 
felt  incapable  of  the  duty?  We  know  better;  but 
they  were  not  of  the  stuff  of  which  martyrs  are  made, 
and,  deferring  to  popular  views,  set  aside  a  sacred 
opportunity.  They  might  have  so  done  that  work  as 
to  have  secured  the  election  of  women  for  ever  after. 

The  occupations  of  which  the  census  takes  no 
account  may  be  classed  as — 

Professions, 
Public  Offices, 
Semi-professions,  and 
Arts. 


206 


THE    MARKET. 


Under  the  Professions  come — 

Physicians, 

Lawyers, 

Ministers, 

of  which  there  are  increasing  numbers. 
Under  Public  Offices  we  find — 

Postmistresses, 

Registers  of  Deeds, 

The  few  calculators  at  Washington,  and 

School-committee  women  at  the  West. 

It  is  probably  known  to  you  all  how  largely  the 
rural  post-office  duties  are  performed  by  women; 
petty  politicians  obtaining  the  appointment,  and  leav- 
ing wives  and  daughters  to  do  the  work.  There  are 
severgCl  Registers  of  Deeds;  but  I  know  only  one, — ■ 
Olive  Rose,  of  Thomaston,  Me.  She  was  elected  in 
1853,  by  469  votes  against  205;  was  officially  notified, 
and  required  to  give  bonds.  Her  emolument  depends 
upon  fees,  and  ranges  between  three  and  four  hundred 
dollars  per  annum.  She  continues  to  perform  the 
duties  of  her  office,  and,  if  an  exquisitely  clear  hand- 
writing is  of  service  there,  will  probably  never  be 
displaced. 

Under  the  head  of  Semi-professions  come — 

Teachers, 
Librarians, 
Editors, 
Lecturers,  and 
Matrons. 


VERIFY   YOUR   CREDENTIALS.  207 

Under  that  of  Artists, — 

Painters, 

Sculptors, 

Teachers  of  Drawing  and  the  like, 

Designers, 

Engravers, 

Public  Singers,  and 

Actresses. 

I  am  sorry  to  conclude  these  attempts  at  statistics 
with  one  reliable  estimate,  which  holds,  like  a  nutshell, 
the  kernel  of  this  question  of  female  labor. 

In  1850,  there  were  engaged  in  shoemaking,  in  the 
town  of  Lynn,  3,729  males  and  6,412  females, — 
nearly  twice  as  many  women  as  men;  yet,  in  the 
monthly  payment  of  wages,  only  half  as  much  money 
was  paid  to  women  as  to  men.  The  three  thousand 
men  received  seventy-five  thousand  dollars  a  month; 
and  the  six  thousand  women,  thirty-seven  thousand 
dollars :  that  is,  the  women's  wages  were,  on  the  aver- 
age, only  one-quarter  as  much  as  those  of  the  men. 

If  we  inquire  into  details,  we  may  find  many  excep- 
tional causes  at  work,  not  perceptible  at  first  sight: 
still  this  remarkable  fact  remains  essentially  unchanged. 

In  my  first  lecture,  I  showed  you  that  women  were 
starving,  and  that  vice  is  a  better  paymaster  than 
labor.  I  showed  you  the  awful  falsity  of  the  cry, 
''Do  not  let  women  work:  we  will  work  for  them. 
They  are  too  tender,  too  delicate,  to  bide  the  rough 
usage  of  the  world."  I  showed  you  that  they  were 
not  only  working  hard,  but  had  been  working  at  hard 


208  THE    MARKET. 

and  unwholesome  work,  not  merely  in  this  century, 
but  in  all  centuries  since  the  world  began.  I  showed 
you  how  man  himself  has  turned  them  back,  when 
they  have  entered  a  well-paid  career.  Practically, 
the  command  of  society  to  the  uneducated  class  is, 
''Marry,  stitch,  die,  or  do  worse." 

Plenty  of  employments  are  open  to  them;  but  all 
are  underpaid.  They  will  never  be  better  paid  till 
women  of  rank  begin  to  work  for  money,  and  so 
create  a  respect  for  woman's  labor;  and  women  of 
rank  will  never  do  this  till  American  men  feel  what 
all  American  men  profess, — a  proper  respect  for 
Labor,  as  God's  own  demand  upon  every  human 
soul, — and  so  teach  American  women  to  feel  it. 
How  often  have  I  heard  that  every  woman  willing  to 
work  may  find  employment!  The  terrible  reverses 
of  1837  taught  many  men  in  this  country  that  they 
were  ''out  of  luck:"  how  absurd,  then,  this  state- 
ment with  regard  to  women!  One  reason  why  so 
many  young  women  are  attracted  to  the  Catholic 
Church  is,  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  a  good  econo- 
mist, and  does  not  tolerate  an  idle  member.  In 
Catholic  countries, — nay,  in  Protestant, — the  gray 
hood  of  the  Sister  of  Charity  is  as  sacred  as  a  crown. 

When  I  think  how  happy  human  life  might  be,  if 
men  and  women  worked  freely  together,  I  lose  pa- 
tience. Such  marriages  as  I  can  dream  of, — where, 
household  duties  thriftily  managed  and  speedily  dis- 
charged, the  wife  assumes  some  honorable  trust,  or 
finds  a  noble  task  for  her  delicate  hands;  while  the 


VERIFY  YOUR  CREDENTIALS.         209 

husband  follows  his  under  separate  auspices!  Occu- 
pied with  real  service  to  men  and  each  other,  how 
happily  would  they  meet  at  night  to  discuss  the  hours 
they  had  lived  apart,  to  help  each  other's  work  by 
each  other's  wit,  and  to  draw  vital  refreshment  from 
the  caresses  of  their  children!  It  is  your  distrust,  O 
men!  that  prevents  your  having  such  homes  as  poets 
fancy.  You  will  not  help  women  to  form  them. 
The  sturdy  pine  pushes  through  the  tightest  soil,  and 
will  grow,  though  nothing  more  genial  than  a  No- 
vember sky  bid  it  welcome;  but  tender  anemones — 
wind-flowers,  as  we  call  them — must  be  coaxed 
through  the  loose  loam  sifted  from  thousands  of  au- 
tumn leaves,  and  tremble  to  the  faintest  air.  Yet  are 
anemones  fairer  than  the  pine,  and  their  lovely  blos- 
soming a  fit  reward  for  Nature's  pains.  Follow  Na- 
ture, and  offer  the  encouragement  which  those  you 
love  best  daily  need.  Do  it  for  your  own  sakes;  for 
proper  employment  will  diffuse  serenity  over  the  anx- 
ious faces  you  are  too  apt  to  see.  Do  not  fancy  that 
the  conventions  of  society  can  ever  prevail  over  the 
will,  it  may  be  the  freak,  of  Nature.  That  stepdame 
is  absolute.  She  set  Hercules  spinning,  and  sent 
Joan  of  Arc  to  Orleans.  She  taught  Mrs.  John 
Stuart  Mill  political  economy,  and  Monsieur  Ma- 
lignon  netting  and  lace-work.  She  enables  women 
to  bear  immense  burdens,  heat,  cold,  and  frost;  she 
sets  them  in  the  thick  of  the  battle  even;  while  in 
South  Carolina,  and  in  the  heart  of  Africa,  or  among 
the  Indians  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  old  men  croon 

18 


210  THE    MARKET. 

over  forsaken  babes  till  the  milk  flows  in  to  their 
withered   breasts.* 

Women  want  work  for  all  the  reasons  that  men 
want  it.     When  they  see  this,   and  begin  to  do  it 
faithfully,  you  will  respect  their  work,  and  pay  them 
for  it.     We  are  all  taught  that  we  are  the  children  of 
God;   only  Mohammedans   deny  their  women  that 
rank:  yet  we  are  left  without  duties,  as  if  such  a 
thing  were  possible, — left  without  work  that  offers 
any  adequate  end  as  a  stimulus  to  diligence  or  ambi- 
tion; and,  until  ''Work"  becomes  man's  cry  of  in- 
spiration, woman  will  never  train  herself  to  do  her 
work  well. 
--     It  was  Margaret  Fuller,  I  think,  who  wrote  of  the 
'    Polish  heroine,  the  Countess  Emily  Plater,  *'She  is 
the  figure  I  want  for  my  frontispiece.     Short  was  her 
career.     Like  the  Maid  of  Orleans,   she  only  lived 
long  enough  to  verify  her  credentials,  and  then  passed 
from  a  scene  on  which  she  was  probably  a  premature 
apparition."     Ah!  that  is  what  all  women  should  do, 
[  — verify  their  credentials!     ''Say  what  you  please," 
\  said  a  young  girl  to  her  lover,  as  thej^  passed  out  of 
1  a  Woman's  Convention;  "a  woman  that  can  speak 
j  like  Lucretia  Mott,  ought  to  speak. "     And  men  them- 
I  selves  cannot  escape  from  this  conviction.     The  duty 
lof  women,  therefore,  is  to  inspire  it  by  doing  what- 
lever  they  undertake  worthily  and  well;  patient  in 
waiting  for  opportunities,  prompt  to  seize,  conscien- 
tious to  profit  by  them. 

♦Livingstone's  "Africa."     Paul  Kane's  "Travels  in  the  North-west." 


VERIFY    YOUR   CREDENTIALS.  211 

The  Sorbonne,  which  still  excludes  woman  from  its 
courses  and  colleges,  has  formed  a  separate  course, 
and  now  institutes  examinations,  and  distributes  di- 
plomas for  women.  The  Committee  consists  of  three 
of  the  Inspectors  of  the  University,  two  Catholic 
priests,  one  Protestant  clergyman,  and  three  ladies. 

A  daughter  of  the  greatest  living  French  poet 
passed  the  examination  lately  for  the  mere  honor  of 
it.  Another  girl,  the  daughter  of  one  of  the  highest 
public  functionaries,  passed  the  examinations;  going 
through  the  winter  twilight  every  morning  at  five, 
that  she  might  not  only  be  permitted  to  found  a 
school  on  her  estate,  but  secure  the  right  to  teach  in 
it.  Aware  that  her  rank  would  befriend  her,  she  con- 
cealed her  name  that  she  might  owe  nothing  to  favor. 
That  is  the  right  spirit.  When  a  majority,  or  even  a 
plurality,  of  women  are  capable  of  it,  farewell  to  lec- 
turers and  lectures,  to  conventions,  special  pleadings, 
and  the  like!  The  whole  harvest  will  be  open,  and 
the  laborers  will  come,  bringing  their  sheaves  with 
them. 

In  receiving  lately  a  letter  from  a  distinguished 
French  author, — Madame  Sirault, — I  was  struck 
by  the  following  sentence:  ''Every  career  from  which 
woman  is  steadily  repulsed  by  man  is,  by  this  fact 
alone,  marked  with  the  seal  of  death.  The  very  re- 
pulse stigmatizes  it.  Man  may  not  be  conscious  of 
what  he  does;  but  the  career  which  is  too  vile  for  a 
woman  to  enter  has  outlived  all  chance  of  reform 
and  must  perish  with  its  abuses." 


212  THE  MARKET. 

And,  heroic  as  this  statement  may  seem  to  you,  it 
is  a  simple  statement  of  fact.  Can  man  demand  of 
woman  a  higher  purity,  a  more  ideal  Christian  grace, 
than  the  letter  of  the  Scripture,  than  the  spirit  of 
Christ,  demands  of  man  himself? — ''Be  ye  therefore 
perfect,  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is  also  perfect." 

That  was  the  clear  command  laid  upon  the  simple 
fishermen,  upon  Luke  the  physician  and  Matthew 
the  publican,  as  well  as  upon  Mary  and  Martha. 
The  world's  eyes  are  slowly  opening  to  the  need  of  a 
pure  life  in  men;  and  it  helps  to  show  men  what 
they  ought  to  be,  when  women  knock  at  the  doors  of 
their  workshops,  and  insist  on  entering. 

*'What!''  says  the  soldier,  ''must  my  sister  follow 
me  to  the  field  to  take  this  blood-stained  hand;  to  see 
me  decked  in  the  spoils  of  fallen  men;  or  hunting  un- 
protected women  like  a  brute  beast,  till  they  fall  sense- 
less on  the  bodies  of  those  they  loved?" 

"Shut  her  out!"  cries  the  minister  of  state.  "Shall 
my  sister  see  these  hands,  dripping  with  blood-money, 
bribed  by  a  slave  power  or  a  party  interest,  sign- 
ing papers  that  condemn  children  yet  unborn  to  the 
miseries  of  hopeless  war?" 

"Shut  her  out!"  cries  the  advocate.  "I  am  pre- 
paring to  defend  this  man  for  luring  helpless  innocence 
to  the  brink  of  hell,  for  building  up  a  fortune  on 
dollars  wrung  from  starving  women,  for  putting  a 
bullet  through  his  brother  because  he  did  not  live 
a  life  purer  than  his  own." 

"Turn  her  out!"  cries  the  judge.     "She  will  see 


VERIFY   YOUR   CREDENTIALS.  213 

that  my  scales  are  loaded.  She  heard  that  railroad 
company  offer  me  a  bribe.  She  caught  a  whisper 
just  now  from  the  husband  of  yonder  outraged  wo- 
man. She  will  hear  the  liquor  dealer's  counsel,  and 
see  the  golden  lure  that  South  Carolina  offers  when 
the  fugitive  stands  at  the  bar.     Turn  her  out!" 

''Turn  her  out!"  says  the  physician.  "Shall  she 
hear  me  jeer  at  what  she  deems  holy?  Would  you 
have  her  grow  shameless  also?" 

"Shut  her  out,"  says  the  trader,  "while  I  mark  my 
goods!  This  spool  of  cotton  is  short  fifty  yards: 
mark  it  two  hundred.  This  yard  of  muslin  was 
made  at  Manchester:  sew  on  the  Paris  tack.  This 
shawl  was  woven  in  France:  label  it  Cashmere. 
Color  that  cheese  with  annatto,  weigh  down  that 
butter  with  salt,  dilute  that  rose-water  from  the  spring, 
grate  up  turnip  to  mix  with  that  horseradish;  but 
turn  that  woman  out!" 

"Turn  her  out!"  cries  the  priest,  last  of  all. 
"Polemics  and  theology  have  no  charms  for  her. 
She  will  ask  me  why  I  do  not  do  justly  and  love 
mercy.     Turn  her  out!" 

"Turn  her  out!"  and,  in  the  shudder  which  creeps 
over  him  while  he  speaks,  man  sees  not  only  how 
tender  and  strong  is  his  love  for  the  sister  that  hung 
on  the  same  maternal  bosom;  but  he  sees  also  what 
the  gospel  without  and  the  gospel  within  demand  of 
the  son  no  less  than  the  daughter  of  God. 

Farewell  to  war,  to  statecraft,  to  legal  tricks,  to 
shifts  of  trade;  farewell  to  bribery,  to  desecration,  to 


214  THE    MARKET. 

idle  controversy, — when  woman  enters  in  to  man's 
labor! 

You  feel  the  doom  falling,  and  strive  to  put  it  off. 
Not  because  God  has  made  woman  of  a  diviner 
nature;  not  because  he  has  made  her  more  precious, 
to  be  kept  from  the  rough  handling  of  the  world, — 
does  it  shrink  from  her  pure  gaze.  No;  but  because 
God  himself,  in  balancing  the  world's  forces,  has 
blended  her  moral  nature  with  her  mental,  purposely 
to  check  her  brother's  aggressiveness,  and  moderate 
his  lust  of  gain.  So  has  he  given  to  man  a  cooler 
temper,  a  grander  deliberateness,  a  strength  equal  to 
every  strain,  which  shall  repair  the  fault  of  her  warm 
impulses,  her  ''nimble"  action,  her  unfitness,  casual 
or  universal,  for  long-sustained  effort.  But  what  can 
either  of  you  do  alone?  Impi^lse,  tenderness,  and 
moral  promptings,  grow  into  tawdry  sentimentalism, 
when  shut  out  from  their  fit  arena,  when  untrained  to 
emulate  a  brother's  active  life.  Coolness,  forethought, 
and  strength  grow  into  cunning,  rapacity,  and  tyr- 
anny, when  uninfluenced  by  that  gentler  element  of 
your  nature  which  God  has  placed  by  your  side. 
Helpsmeet  for  each  other  you  were  ordained:  why 
hinder  and  obstruct  each  other's  pathway? 

From  this  moment,  put  aside  ignoble  jealousy,  inert 
sympathy,  and  stupid  indifference  to  your  own  moral 
position.  Only  by  heartily  accepting  the  sweet  juices 
and  flavors  of  her  life  can  you  secure  fragrant  blossoms 
and  precious  fruit  to  your  own.  The  words  are  just 
as  true  when  I  turn  to  counsel  her.     If  ever  this  earth 


VERIFY   YOUR    CREDENTIALS.  215 

grows  liker  heaven,  it  will  be  when  the  broad  and 
generous  sympathies  prophesied  by  this  new  move- 
ment take  practical  shape,  and  there  are — 

"Everywhere 
Two  heads  in  council,  two  beside  the  hearth, 
Two  in  the  tangled  business  of  the  world, 
Two  in  the  hberal  offices  of  life. 
Two  plummets  dropped  for  one,  to  sound  the  abyss 
Of  science,  and  the  secrets  of  the  mind : 
Musician,  painter,  sculptor,  critic,  more: 
And  everywhere  the  broad  and  bounteous  Earth 
Shall  bear  a  double  growth  of  its  best  souls." 

I  have  often  spoken,  not  only  in  this  lecture,  but  in 
almost  every  one  I  have  ever  given,  of  the  great  need 
of  conscientious,  painstaking  woman's  work.  During 
the  last  year.  Baron  Tcermer  has  been  borne  by  torch- 
light to  his  last  homfe,  and  the  mediaeval  artist  has  been 
mourned  as  a  personal  friend  by  many  a  crowned 
head.  The  torches  of  the  priests  who  bore  him  to 
his  grave  very  likely  startled  to  the  window  our  two 
young  countrywomen,  who  are  pursuing  sculpture  in 
the  Eternal  City.  Little  did  they  guess,  that,  in  the 
city  of  Florence,  there  was  living  at  that  moment  a 
woman  as  able,  as  renowned,  though,  for  certain 
reasons,  not  so  well  known  to  them,  as  the  great  artist 
just  departed.  I  will  close  this  lecture  with  a  brief 
sketch  of  F^licie  de  Fauveau,  for  whose  woman's 
work  no  apology  will  ever  need  to  be  made. 

Entering  Florence  by  the  Porta  Romana,  you  find 
in  the  Via  della  Fornace,  a  dark-green  door,  which 
opens  in  to  a  paved  court,  once  the  entrance  to  a 
convent.     Beyond  stretches  a  cool,  quiet  garden;  and 


216  THE    MARKET. 

all  manner  of  birdcages  and  dovecotes  remind  you  of 
Rosa  Bonheur's  fondness  for  pets.  Through  that 
quiet  garden,  hedged  with  laurel  and  cypress,  you 
might  have  walked,  but  a  little  time  ago,  with  a 
shrewd,  sagacious,  life-loving  French  woman,  an  aris- 
tocrat and  a  Legitimist,  whose  eyes  had  looked  upon 
the  guillotine,  and  who  was  proud  of  having  suffered 
for  her  faith  and  country.  She  would  lead  you  to  her 
small  parlor,  furnished  with  ancient  hangings,  carved 
chairs,  and  gold-grounded  Pre-Raphaelite  pictures  of 
great  value.  Here  she  would  introduce  you  to  her 
daughter,  Felicie  de  Fauveau. 

A  forehead  low  and  broad;  soft,  brown  eyes;  an 
aquiline  nose;  a  well-cut,  well-closed  mouth;  a  flexi- 
ble, fine  figure;  a  velvet  skirt  and  jacket  of  the  color 
of  the  ''dead  leaf;"  a  velvet  cap  of  the  same,  drawn 
over  blonde  hair,  cut  square  across  the  forehead,  as  in 
the  picture  of  Faust, — this  is  what  you  see  when  you 
look  at  the  artist;  this  is  what  Ary  Scheffer  painted 
and  valued  so,  that  no  gold  would  buy  the  portrait 
while  he  lived.  Fire,  air,  and  water  are  in  that  or- 
ganization: the  movements  of  the  arms  are  angular; 
but  the  hands  are  soft,  white,  fine,  and  royal. 

Born  in  Tuscany,  she  was  early  carried  to  Paris; 
whence  she  removed,  when  very  young,  to  Limoux, 
Bayonne,  and  Besan9on.  A  great  taste  for  music 
and  painting  she  inherited  from  her  mother.  Her 
studies  were  profound,  and  among  them  she  pursued 
archaeology  and  heraldry.  At  Besangon  she  painted 
in  oils,  but  was  not  satisfied;  and  from  the  workmen 


VERIFY   YOUR    CREDENTIALS.  217 

who  carved  for  the  churches  she  got  her  first  hint 
towards  modeUirig.  When  her  father  died,  she  was 
ready  to  devote  herself  to  the  support  of  her  family. 
When  people  told  her  it  was  unbecoming,  she  drew 
herself  up:  ''Are  you  ignorant,"  she  asked,  "that  an 
artist  is  a  gentlewoman?" 

Benvenuto  Cellini  was  her  prototype;  and  to  her 
may  be  attributed  that  revival  of  a  taste  for  mediaeval 
art  which,  proceeding  from  Paris,  has  had,  of  late 
years,  so  great  an  influence  on  England. 

Her  first  work  was  a  group  called  ''The  Abbot." 
Encouraged  by  unlimited  praise,  she  m.ade  a  basso- 
relievo, — containing  six  figures,  and  representing 
Christina  of  Sweden  in  the  fatal  galley  with  Monal- 
deschi.  This  was  in  the  last  "Exposition  des  Beaux 
Arts,"  and  received  the  gold  medal  from  Charles  X. 
in  person. 

Up  to  1830,  the  young  girl  remained  in  Paris.  Her 
mother  was  so  accomplished,  Felicie  herself  so  witty 
and  profound  a  talker,  that  a  distinguished  circle 
gathered  round  them;  among  them,  Scheffer,  Dela- 
roche,  Giraud.  All  manner  of  fine  artistic  experiments 
in  modelling  and  drawing  were  improvised  about 
their  study-table.  There  she  executed  for  Count 
Pourtales  a  bronze  lamp'  of  singular  beauty.  A 
bivouac  of  archangels,  armed  as  knights,  were  repre- 
sented as  resting  round  a  watch-fire,  where  St. 
Michael  stood  sentinel ;  round  the  lamp,  in  golden 
letters,  Vaillant,  veillant, — "Brave,  but  cautious;" 
beneath,  a  stork's  foot  holds  a  pebble  surrounded  by 


218  THE    MARKET. 

beautiful  aquatic  plants.  Many  models  were  lost  on 
the  breaking-up  of  her  Paris  studio.  She  was  inces- 
santly occupied  with  commissions  for  private  galle- 
ries; she  was  to  have  modelled  two  doors  for  the 
Louvre,  and  to  have  superintended  the  decoration  of 
a  baptistery, — when  the  Revolution  broke  up  her 
calm  and  studious  life.  With  the  celebrated  daugh- 
ter of  the  Duras  Family,  she  retired  to  La  Vendee, 
and,  virtuous  and  honored,  made  herself  as  active, 
politically,  as  the  reckless  women  of  the  Fronde.  To 
this  day,  the  peasantry  know  her  as  the  Demoiselle. 
For  those  who  remember  her,  there  will  never  be 
another.  Finally  came  pursuit  and  capture.  After  a 
long  search,  the  two  women  were  dragged  from  the 
mouth  of  an  oven.  Felicie  assisted  her  companion  to 
escape;  was  watched  more  closely  in  consequence, 
and  remained  seven  months  in  prison  at  Angers.  In 
prison  she  designed  a  group  representing  the  duel  of 
the  Lord  of  Jarnac  before  Henry  IL,  and  a  monument 
to  Louis  de  Bonnechose.  At  the  close  of  the  seven 
months,  she  returned  to  her  studio  at  Paris.  But 
very  soon  the  appearance  of  the  Duchesse  de  Berri  in 
La  Vendue  restored  hope  to  all  Royalist  hearts,  and 
Felicie  rushed  to  her  side. 

''My  opinions  are  dearer  to  me  than  my  art,"  she 
said,  and  proved  it  by  heroic  sacrifices.  On  the  fail- 
ure of  this  second  attempt,  she  was  exiled  by  the  gov- 
ernment. In  the  very  teeth  of  the  authorities,  she 
returned  to  Paris,  broke  up  her  studio,  and  joined  her 
mother  in  Florence,  where  they  have  ever  since  re- 


VERIFY  YOUR  CREDENTIALS.  219 

sided,  clad,  not  without  significance,  in  colors  of  the 
fallen  leaf.  No  one  but  an  artist  can  guess  what  loss 
is  involved  in  the  sudden  and  forcible  breaking-up  of 
an  old  studio.  At  the  very  moment  when  F^licie  and 
her  mother  were  all  but  starving  in  Florence,  a  man  in 
Paris  made  an  almost  fabulous  fortune  by  selling 
walking-sticks  made  from  designs  which  she  had 
sketched  during  the  happy  evenings  of  her  girlhood. 
The  Fauveaus  would  not  accept  a  dollar  from  the 
party  they  had  served;  and  Madame  had  as  much 
pride  as  her  daughter  in  establishing  the  new  studio, 
Felicie  wrote,  '^We  have  manna,  but  only  on  condi- 
tion that  we  save  none  for  the  morrow." 

In  her  studio  you  find  no  Pagan  traces,  only  Chris- 
tian art, — St.  Dorothea  lifting  her  lovely  hands  for  the 
basket  of  fruit  an  angel  brings;  a  Santa  Reparata, 
perfect  in  terra-cotta;  exquisite  mirror-frames  of 
wood,  bronze,  and  silver.  She  has  executed  for  Count 
Zichy  an  Hungarian  costume,  a  collar,  belt,  sword,  and 
spurs,  of  finest  work.  The  Empress  of  Russia  has 
ordered  from  her  a  silver  bell.  It  is  decorated  by 
twenty  figures,  the  servants  of  a  mediaeval  house- 
hold; who  assemble  at  the  call  of  three  stewards, 
whose  figures  form  the  handle.  Round  the  bell  is 
blazoned,  in  Gothic  letters, — 

"De  bon  vouloir  servir  le  maitre." 
"With  good  will  to  serve  the  master." 

Beside  the  crowded  labors  of  twenty-five  years, 
Felicie  has  studied  the  merely  mechanical  portions  of 
her  art,  and  tried  to  discover  some  old  artistic  secrets. 


220  THE    MARKET. 

To  cast  a  statue  whole,  so  as  to  require  no  after- 
touch  of  the  chisel,  has  been  her  lifelong  endeavor. 
She  finally  succeeded  in  her  St.  Michael,  though  not 
till  it  had  been  recast  seven  times.  It  is  probable  her 
experiments  led  the  way  for  those  by  which  Crawford 
succeeded  in  casting  his  Beethoven.  I  cannot  tell 
how  many  of  you  have  heard  of  Felicie  de  Fauveau. 
The  fact  that  her  works  are  chiefly  in  private  galleries 
and  her  own  studio,  screens  her  from  observation. 
The  higher  dignitaries  of  the  church  and  the  princes 
of  art  are  almost  her  only  companions.  She  works 
constantly.  About  a  year  since,  the  death  of  her  de- 
voted mother  drew  the  veil  still  closer  round  her  daily 
life;  but  I  retrace  her  story  with  honorable  pride. 

Felicie  de  Fauveau  is  not  merely  an  artist.     She  is 
'the  first  artist  in  the  world,  in  her  peculiar  walk.     As 
a  worker  in  jewels,  bronze,  gold,  and  silver,  as  a  de- 
signer  of  monuments   and   mediaeval   furniture,    she 
stands  without  approach. 

"Witness  that  she  who  did  these  things  was  born 
To  do  them;  claims  her  license  in  her  work." 

So  let  all  women  claim  it. 


221 


III. 

"THE  OPENING  OF  THE   GATES." 

* '  If  such  a  day  never  come,  then  I  perceive  much  else  will  never 
come;  heroic  purity  of  heart  and  of  eye,  noble,  pious  valor  to 
amend  us  and  the  age  of  bronze  and  lacquer, — how  can  they 
ever  come?" — T.  Carlyle. 

"T^O  destroy  daughters  is  to  make  war  upon 
'*•  Heaven's  harmony.  The  more  daughters  you 
drown,  the  more  daughters  you  will  have;  and  never 
was  it  known  that  the  drowning  of  daughters  led  to 
the  birth  of  sons." 

This  passage  from  the  treatise  of  Kwei  Chunk  Fu 
upon  Infanticide  may  be  translated  so  as  to  apply 
to  every  Christian  nation.  The  Chinese  are  not  /H 
the  only  people  who  drown  daughters.  England, 
France,  and  America,  the  three  leading  intelligences 
of  the  world,  are  busy  at  it  this  moment.  The  cold, 
pure  wave  of  the  Pacific  is  a  sweeter  draught  than 
that  social  flood  of  corruption  and  depression  which, 
like  a  hideous  quicksand,  buries  your  sisters  out  of 
your  sight.  "The  more  daughters  you  drown,  the 
more  daughters  you  will  have.'*  Most  certainly;  and 
if,  instead  of  the  word  ''daughters,''  you  insert  the 
words  ''weak  and  useless  members  of  society," — 
which  is  what  the  Chinese  mean  by  it, — you  will  see 
that  Kwei  Fu  is  right.  Let  women  starve;  let  them 
sink  into  untold  depths  of  horror,  without  one  effort 


222  THE    MARKET. 

to  save  them;  and,  for  every  woman  so  lost,  two 
shall  be  born  to  inherit  her  fate. 

Nor  need  the  careless  and  ignorant  man  of  wealth 
fancy  that  his  own  daughters  shall  escape  while  he 
continues  heartlessly  indifferent,  though  he  never  act- 
ively wronged  a  human  creature.  When  the  spoiler 
is  abroad,  he  does  not  pause  to  choose  his  victims. 
The  fairest  and  most  innocent  may  be  the  first  struck 
down;  for  human  passions  find  their  fitting  type  in 
the  persecuted  beast  of  the  forest.  It  is  not  the  hun- 
ter alone  who  feels  his  teeth  and  talons,  but  the  first 
human  flesh  his  lawless  members  seize. 

If  these  things  are  so,  surely  it  is  our  duty  to  con- 
sider well  this  question  of  work,  to  suggest  all  possible 
modes  of  relief,  and,  while  waiting  for  the  final  ap- 
plication of  absolute  principles,  to  help  society  for- 
ward by  all  partial  measures  of  amelioration;  for  only 
partial  can  they  be,  so  long  as  the  present  modes  of 
thought  and  feeling  continue.  How  little  any  one 
person  can  contribute  toward  the  solution  of  our  dif- 
ficulties, I  am  well  aware;  yet  I  venture  to  make  a 
few  suggestions. 

The  '^  Edinburgh  Review,"  whether  prepared  to 
recommend  female  preachers  and  lecturers  or  not,  does 
propose  women  as  teachers  of  Oratory;  and  says  dis- 
tinctly, that,  for  this  purpose,  they  are  to  be  preferred 
to  men,  as  their  voices  are  more  penetrating,  distinct, 
delicate,  and  correct  than  those  of  men.  I  think  it 
was  a  matter  of  surprise  to  American  audiences,  when 
women  first  came  forward  as  public  speakers,  that,  in 


223 


so  large  a  number  of  cases,  the  parlor  tone  would 
reach  to  the  extremity  of  a  large  hall.  Women,  too, 
were  heard  at  a  disadvantage,  because  popular  curi- 
osity compelled  them  to  speak  in  the  largest  buildings. 
There  are  a  great  many  women,  and  there  are  also  a 
great  many  men,  whose  voices  are  wholly  unfit  for 
public  exigencies ;  but,  when  you  consider  that  women 
have  been  wholly  untrained  so  far,  how  great  do  their 
natural  advantages  appear!  Several  female  teachers 
of  elocution  in  our  midst  prove  that  this  is  gradually 
perceived.  These  remarks  should  be  extended  so  as 
to  cover  all  instruction  in  the  pronunciation  of  lan- 
guages. There  may  be  men  capable  of  distinguishing 
the  delicate  shades  of  sound,  so  that  a  woman's  voice 
can  catch  them;  but  such  men  are  rare  exceptions  to 
the  common  incompetency.  The  French  nasals  can- 
not be  distinguished  accurately  by  a  man's  voice:  the 
bass  tone  is  too  broad,  and  the  treble  wavers  in  trying 
to  find  the  middle  rest.  Pursue  the  study  of  Italian 
for  years,  with  the  best  teacher  that  Boston  can  fur- 
nish; and,  when  you  first  hear  a  cultivated  Italian 
woman  speak,  you  will  find  that  you  have  the  whole 
thing  to  learn  over  again.  So  there  was  never  any 
teacher  of  the  French  language  equal  to  Rachel, 
whose  nimble  and  fiery  tongue  never  dropped  an  un- 
meaning accent  nor  tone;  nor  of  the  English  like 
Fanny  Kemble,  who,  despite  certain  ''stage  tricks,"  in 
vogue  since  the  days  of  Garrick,  shows  us  what  deli- 
cate shades  of  meaning  lie  hidden  in  the  vowel 
sounds,  and  what  power  a  slight  variation  of  a  flexible 


224  THE    MARKET. 

voice  confers  upon  a  dull  passage.  The  teaching  of 
oratory  and  of  language,  then,  should  devolve  upon 
woman. 

"Why,"  asks  Ernest  Legouve, — "why  should  not 
the  immense  variety  of  bureaucrative  and  administra- 
tive employments  be  given  up  to  women?"  Under 
this  head  would  come  the  business  inspection  of 
hospitals,  barracks,  prisons,  factories,  and  the  like; 
and  the  decision  of  many  sanitary  questions.  For  all 
this,  woman  is  far  fitter  than  man.  Her  eye  is  quick; 
her  common  sense  ready:  she  sees  the  consequence  in 
the  cause,  and  does  not  need  to  argue  every  disputed 
point.  A  shingle  missing  from  the  roof  is  a  trifle  to 
a  man;  but,  the  moment  a  woman  sees  it,  her  glance 
takes  in  the  stained  walls,  the  dripping  curtains,  wet 
carpets,  sympathetic  ceilings,  damp  beds,  and  very 
possibly  the  colds  and  illness,  which  this  trifle  in- 
volves. For  this  reason,  she  is  a  far  fitter  inspector 
of  all  small  abuses  than  man. 

Consider,  then,  Legouve's  proposition.  The  pro- 
prietor of  the  London  Adelphi  advertised,  at  the 
opening  of  the  last  season,  that  his  box-openers,  check- 
takers,  and  so  on,  would  all  be  women.  Throughout 
the  whole  range  of  public  amusements,  there  is  a 
wide  field  for  the  employment  of  girls,  which  this 
single  step  has  thrown  open. 

Women  are  so  steadily  pressing  in  to  the  medical 
profession,  that  I  have  no  need  to  direct  your  atten- 
tion toward  it;  but  I  may  say,  that  it  is  much  to  be 
wished  that  women  should  devote  themselves  to  the 


*'the  opening  of  the  gates."  225 

specialities  of  that  science.  Until  within  a  very  few 
years,  a  Boston  physician  has  been  expected  to  under- 
stand all  the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to;  an  eye-doctor 
or  an  ear-doctor  or  a  lung-doctor  must  necessarily  be 
a  quack.  Women  are  entering,  in  medicine,  a  very 
wide  field.  A  few  specially  gifted  may  master  every 
branch  of  practice;  but  many  will  undoubtedly  fail, 
from  the  want  of  inherited  habits  of  hard  study,  of 
transmitted  power  of  investigation.  I  wish  those  who 
are  in  danger  of  this  would  apply  strenuously  to  one 
branch  of  practice;  and  a  great  success  in  any  one 
direction  would  do  more  for  the  general  cause  than  a 
thousand  competences  earned  by  an  ordinary  career. 
I  do  not  suppose  there  is  a  city  in  the  United 
States, — and,  if  not  in  the  United  States,  then  cer- 
tainly not  in  the  world, — where,  if  you  asked  the 
name  of  the  first  physician,  you  would  be  answered 
by  that  of  a  woman.*  I  do  not  complain  of  this:  it 
is  too  soon  to  expect  it.    Colleges,  schools  of  anatomy, 


*I  am  happy  to  find,  on  the  authority  of  the  "London  Athenaeum,"  .that 
this  statement  was,  when  I  wrote  it,  untrue.  "Germany,"  it  says,  on  the  23d 
of  July,  1859, — "Germany  has  lost  one  of  her  most  famed  and  eminent  female 
scholars.  Frau  Dr.  Heidenreich,  nee  Von  Siebold,  died  at  Darmstadt  a  fort- 
night ago.  She  was  born  in  1792,  studied  the  science  of  midwifery  at  the  Uni- 
versities of  Gottingen  and  Giessen,  and  took  her  doctor's  degree  in  1817;  not, 
honoris  caiisd,  by  favor  of  the  Faculty,  but,  like  any  other  German  student,  by 
writing  the  customary  Latin  dissertation,  as  well  as  by  bravely  defending,  in 
public  disputation,  a  number  of  medical  theses.  After  that,  she  took  up  her 
permanent  abode  at  Darmstadt,  indefatigable  in  the  exercise  of  her  special 
branch  of  science,  and  universally  honored  as  one  of  its  first  Uving  authorities." 

"Universally  honored  as  one  of  its  first  living  authorities,"  that  was  what  I 
was  in  search  of;  and  French  and  German  papers  confirm  the  statement.  Dr. 
Heidenreich  came  of  a  family  highly  distinguished  in  her  speciality.  It  wa8 
ancient  and  noble:  she  was  a  baroness  in  her  own  right.     All  readers  of  English 

19 


226  THE    MARKET. 

clinical  courses,  have  not  yet  been  thrown  open;  and 
success,  so  far,  has  been  mastered  mainly  by  original 
endowment.     Genius  has  held  the  torch,  and  shown 


works  on  midwifery  know  the  authority  given  to  the  name  of  Von  Siebold. 
Her  step-father's  brother  founded  the  famous  hospital  at  Berlin:  and  one  of 
his  nephews,  still  living,  stands  high  in  medical  fame,  having  written  the  best 
history  of  midwifery  extant. 

Rosa  Bonheur,  also,  is  as  unquestionably  at  the  head  of  her  department  as 
Sir  Edmund  Landseer.  The  three  pictures  Boston  has  had  a  chance  to  see  this 
autumn  ought  to  fill  every  woman's  bosom  with  a  glow  of  honest  pride. 

I  can  find  no  better  place  than  this,  perhaps,  to  introduce  the  following  facts, 
to  which  my  attention  has  been  directed  by  the  kindness  of  Miss  Mary  L.  Booth, 
of  New  York. 

In  the  History  of  Southold,  N.Y., — one  of  the  oldest  towns  in  the  United 
States, — it  appears  that  women  have  practised  there  as  "doctresses"  and  "mid- 
wives"  from  the  first  settlement  of  the  country.  From  1740  to  the  present 
time, — more  than  one  hundred  years, — the  town  of  Southold  has  had  a  trust- 
worthy female  physician.  The  first  of  these,  Elizabeth  King,  who  practised 
from  1740  until  her  death  in  1780,  attended  at  the  birth  of  more  than  one 
thousand  children. 

During  this  time, — from  1760  to  1775, — a  Mrs.  Peck  was  also  known  in  the 
same  town  as  an  excellent  midwife.  The  direct  successor  of  Mrs.  King  was, 
however,  a  Mrs.  Lucretia  Lester,  who  practised  from  1745  to  1779.  Of  her 
my  authority  says,  "She  was  justly  respected  as  nurse  and  doctress  to  the 
pains  and  infirmities  incident  to  her  fellow-mortals,  especially  her  own  sex;" 
a  remark  which  shows  she  attended  both.  "She  was,  during  thirty  years,  con- 
spicuous as  an  angel  of  mercy;  a  woman  whose  price  was  beyond  rubies.  It  is 
said  she  attended  at  the  birth  of  thirteen  hundred  children,  and,  of  that  number, 
lost  but  two." 

A  Mrs.  Susannah  Brown  practised  from  1800  to  1840,  and  attended  at  the 
birth  of  fourteen  hundred  children.  From  the  number  of  patients  these  women 
must  have  had,  it  would  seem  as  if  they  were  sustained  by  the  whole  neighbor- 
hood. The  book  just  published  speaks  highly  of  them,  as  what  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  would  call  a  "means  of  grace,"  and  pleads,  from  the  precedent,  for  the 
education  of  women  to  medicine. 

Southold  is  in  Suffolk  County,  on  Long  Island;  and  was  settled  in  the  early 
part  of  the  seventeenth  century.  It  has  now  three  churches,  and  less  than  five 
thousand  inhabitants. 

The  instance  of  so  creditable  a  practice  being  maintained  for  a  whole  century, 
by  three  women,  stands  alone,  so  far  as  I  know,  in  this  country.  Mrs.  King 
probably  studied  abroad,  and  taught  her  next  successor,  and  possibly  Mrs. 
Peck,  who  seems  to  have  assisted  both.  That  three  of  the  four  women  named 
should  have  practised  forty  years  each,  seems  very  remarkable. 


227 


the  way;  but  I  want  women  to  remember,  that,  in 
this  department,  all  the  teachings  of  nature  and  expe- 
rience show  that  they  are  bound  to  excel  men.  Let 
them,  therefore,  take  the  best  way  to  accomplish  it. 

At  the  school  of  Design  in  New  York,  the  other 
day,  I  pressed  upon  the  observation  of  the  young 
wood-engravers  the  possibility  of  opening  for  them- 
selves a  new  career  by  wood-carving.  It  is  quite 
common,  in  old  European  museums,  to  see  the  stones 
of  plums  and  peaches  delicately  carved  by  woman's 
hand,  and  set  in  frames  of  gold  and  jewels.  Some- 
times they  are  the  work  of  departed  saints  or  cloistered 
nuns;  and  a  terrible  waste  of  time  they  seem  to  our 
modern  eyes.  Properzia  de'  Rossi, — whose  early 
history  is  so  obscure,  that  no  one  knows  the  name  of 
her  parents;  while  the  cities  of  Bologna  and  Modena 
still  dispute  the  honor  of  her  birth, — Properzia  began 
her  wonderful  career  by  carving  on  peach  stones. 
One  she  decorated  with  thirty  sacred  figures,  holding 
the  stone  so  near  the  eye  as  to  gain  a  microscopic 
power.  On  one  still  in  the  possession  of  the  Grassi 
Family,  at  Bologna,  she  chiselled  the  passion  of  our 
Lord;  where  twelve  figures,  gracefully  disposed,  are 
said  to  glow  with  characteristic  expression.  Proper- 
zia died  a  maiden,  according  to  Vasari  and  the  best 
manuscript  contemporaneous  authority;  and  there 
seems  to  be  no  ground  for  the  vile  stories  that  have 
clustered  round  her  name,  other  than  the  fact,  that  in 
her  sculpture  of  Potiphar's  wife,  finished  when  she 
knew  that  she  was  dying,  she  ventured  to  cut  her 


228  THE    MARKET. 

own  likeness.  It  is  not  to  the  carving  of  cherry- 
stones, however,  that  I  would  direct  the  attention  of 
young  women,  but  to  the  Swiss  carving  of  paper- 
knives,  bread-plates,  salad-spoons,  ornamental  figures, 
jewel-boxes,  and  so  on.  On  account  of  the  care 
required  in  transportation,  these  articles  bring  large 
prices;  and  I  feel  quite  sure  that  many  an  idle  girl 
might  win  a  pleasant  fame  through  such  trifles.  No 
one  will  dispute  the  assertion,  who  recalls  the  pranks 
of  her  young  classmates  at  school.  Do  you  remem- 
ber the  exquisite  drawings  which  once  decorated  the 
kerchiefs,  the  linen  collars  and  sleeves,  of  a  certain 
schoolroom?  The  sun  of  the  artist  set  early;  but  I 
have  often  thought  that  a  free  maiden  career  in  the 
higher  walks  of  art  might  have  preserved  her  to  us. 
The  same  fancy,  displayed  in  wood-carving,  would 
have  challenged  the  attention  of  the  world;  and  the 
cherry-stones  also  bore  witness  to  her  power.  The 
only  practical  difficulty  would  spring  from  the  want 
of  highly  seasoned  wood;  and  that  could  be  obviated 
by  a  little  patience.  Should  any  young  girl  be  tempted 
.by  my  words  into  this  career,  I  hope  she  will  not  give 
away  her  carvings  to  indifferent  friends,  but  carry 
them  into  the  market  at  once,  and  let  them  bring 
their  price,  that  she  may  know  her  own  value,  and 
that  of  her  work. 

Properzia  also  excelled  in  engraving:  so'  did  Eliza- 
betta  Sirani  in  1660.  Her  engravings  from  Guido  are 
still  considered  masterpieces.  We  have  female  engrav- 
ers on  wood  and  steel,  and  also  female  lithographers. 


''  THE  OPENING  OF  THE  GATES  "        229 

I  want  some  woman  to  apply  herself  to  this  work, 
with  such  energy  and  determination  as  will  place  her 
at  the  head  of  it.  Let  her  do  this,  and  she  could 
soon  establish  a  workshop,  and  take  men  and  women 
into  her  employ;  standing  responsible  herself  for  the 
finish  of  every  piece  of  work  marked  with  her  name. 
Let  some  idle  woman  of  wealth  offer  the  capital  for 
such  an  experiment,  and  share  some  of  its  adminis- 
trative duties.  ''Success"  is  the  best  argument.  It 
would  be  possible  to  organize  in  Boston,  at  this  mo- 
ment, a  shop  of  the  best  kind,  where  all  the  designing 
and  engraving  should  be  done  by  women.  Why  can 
it  not  be  tried?    Carvers  on  wood,  and  engravers  then. 

I  have  known  several  English  barbers, — not  women 
of  the  decorative  art,  like  our  saintly  Harriet  Ryan; 
but  women  actually  capable  of  shaving  a  man! 
Why,  then,  does  the  "Englishwoman's  Journal"  in^ 
form  us,  that,  in  Normandy  and  Western  Africa 
there  actually  are  female  barbers? 

I  think  there  is  room  in  Boston  for  an  establish- 
ment of  this  kind;  a  place  from  which  a  woman 
could  come  to  a  sick-room  to  shave  the  heated  head 
or  cut  the  beard  of  the  dying;  a  place  where  women's 
and  children's  wants  could  be  attended  to  without 
necessary  contact  with  men;  and  with  the  absolutely 
necessary  cleanliness,  of  which  there  is  not  now  a 
single  instance  in  this  city. 

When  I  mentioned  wood-carving  to  women,  I  was 
thinking,  in  part,  of  the  immense  annual  demand  for 
Christmas  presents.    In  this  connection,  also,  I  should 


230  THE    MARKET. 

like  to  direct  the  attention  of  our  rural  women  to  the 
art  of  preserving  and  candying  fruit.  ''But  that  is 
nothing  new/'  you  will  say.  ''Did  not  your  Massa- 
chusetts census  for  1845  enumerate  certain  picklers 
and  preservers?"  Yes;  but  those  women  were  merely 
in  the  employ  of  men  carrying  on  large  establishments. 
What  I  would  suggest  is  a  domestic  manufacture  to 
compete  with  French  candies,  and  to  occupy  the 
minds  of  our  farmers'  wives  and  daughters,  to  the 
exclusion  of  shirt-fronts  and  shoe-binding. 

Every  one  of  us,  probably,  fills  more  than  one 
little  stocking,  on  Christmas  night,  with  candied  fruit. 
If  we  belong  to  the  "first  families,"  and  wish  to  do 
the  thing  handsomely,  this  fruit  has  cost  from  seventy- 
five  cents  to  a  dollar  a  pound;  we  knowing,  all  the 
while,  that  better  could  be  produced  for  half  or  two- 
thirds  the  money.  Last  year,  I  purchased  one  pound 
of  the  candy,  and  examined  it  with  practical  reference 
to  this  question.  Plums,  peaches,  cherries,  apples, 
and  pears,  all  tasted  alike,  and  had  evidently  been 
boiled  in  the  same  sirup.  Apple  and  quince  marma- 
lades alone  had  any  flavor.  Now,  our  farmers'  daugh- 
ters could  cook  these  fruits  so  as  to  preserve  their 
flavor,  could  candy  them  and  pack  them  into  boxes, 
quite  as  well  as  the  French  men;  and  so  a  new  and 
important  domestic  industry  might  arise.  The  experi- 
ment would  be  largely  profitable  as  soon  as  all  risk  of 
mistake  were  over;  and  perishable  fruit  at  a  dis- 
tance from  market  could  be  used  in  this  way.  A  few 
years  ago,  we  had  a  rare  conserve  from  Constantinople 


231 


and  Smyrna,  called  fig-paste.  Now  wiB  have  a  mix- 
ture of  gum  Arabic  and  flour,  flavored  with  essences; 
made  for  the  most  part  at  Westboro',  and  called  by 
the  same  name.  Yes,  we  actually  have  fig-paste, 
spicy  with  wintergreen  and  black-birch!  Now,  what 
is  to  prevent  our  farmers'  daughters  from  making 
this? — from  putting  up  fruits  in  air-tight  cans,  and 
drying  a  great  many  kinds  of  vegetables  that  cannot 
be  had  now  for  love  or  money?  Who  can  get  Lima 
beans  or  dried  sweet-corn,  that  does  not  dry  them 
from  his  own  garden? 

Do  not  let  our  medical  friends  feel  too  indignant  if 
I  recommend  to  these  same  women  the  manufacture 
of  pickles.  The  use  of  pickles,  like  the  use  of  wine, 
may  be  a  questionable  thing;  but,  like  liquors,  they 
are  a  large  article  of  trade:  and,  if  we  must  have 
them,  why  not  have  them  made  of  wholesome  fruit, 
in  good  cider-vinegar,  with  a  touch  of  the  grand- 
motherly seasoning  that  we  all  remember,  rather  than 
of  stinted  gherkins,  soured  by  vitriol  and  greened  by 
copper?  There  are  many  sweet  sauces,  too, — made 
of  fruit,  stewed  with  vinegar,  spice,  and  sugar, — 
which  cannot  be  obtained  in  shops,  and  would  meet  a 
good  market.  How  easy  the  whole  matter  is,  may  be 
guessed  from  this  fact,  that,  sitting  once  at  a  Southern 
table, — the  t^ble  of  a  genial  grand-nephew  of  George 
Washington,  who  bore  his  name, — I  was  offered 
twenty-five  kinds  of  candied  fruit,  all  made  by  the 
delicate  hands  of  his  wife;  and  seven  varieties  in 
form  and  flavor,  from  the  common  tomato. 


232  THE   MARKET. 

I  looked  through  Boston  in  vain,  the  other  day,  to 
find  a  common  dish-mop  large  enough  to  serve  my 
purpose.  There  was  no  such  thing  to  be  found. 
Taking  up  one  of  the  slender  tassels  offered  me,  I 
inquired  into  its  history,  and  was  informed  that  it 
was  imported  from  France.  The  one  I  had  been  try- 
ing to  replace  had  been  made  by  some  skilful  Yankee 
hand  for  a  Ladies'  Fair.  Now,  what  are  our  poor 
women  doing,  that  they  cannot  compete  with  this 
French  trumpery,  and  give  us  at  least  dish-mops  fit 
for  use? 

As  teachers  of  gymnastics,  women  are  already 
somewhat  employed.  A  wide  field  would  be  opened, 
if  a  teacher  were  attached  to  each  of  our  public 
schools, — a  step  in  physical  education  greatly  needed. 

No  conservative  is  so  prejudiced,  I  suppose,  as  to 
object  to  placing  woman  in  all  positions  of  moral 
supervision.  Female  assistants  in  jails,  prisons,  work- 
houses, insane  asylums,  and  hospitals,  are  seen  to  be 
fit,  and  to  have  a  harmonizing  influence  in  every  re- 
spect. How  many  more  such  assistants  are  needed, 
we  may  guess  from  the  fact  that  our  City  Jail  and 
Charlestown  are  still  unsupplied.  Women  of  a  su- 
perior order  are  needed  for  such  posts;  and  when  will 
they  be  found?  Not  till  labor  is  thoroughly  re- 
spected; not  till  the  popular  voice  says,  ^'It  is  all 
very  well  to  be  a  Miss  Dix,  and  go  from  asylum  to 
asylum,  suggesting  and  improving;  but  it  is  just  as 
well,  quite  as  honorable,  to  work  in  one  asylum,  car- 
rjqng  out  the  wise  ideas  which  a  Miss  Dix  suggests, 


''the  opening  of  the  gates."  233 

and  securing  the  faithful  trial  of  her  experiments." 
Many  men  in  Beacon  Street  would  feel  honored  to 
call  the  moving  philanthropist  sister  or  friend;  but 
few  would  like  to  acknowledge  a  daughter  in  the 
post  of  matron  or  superintendent.  Why  not?  There 
is  something  ''rotten  in  the  State"  where  such  incon- 
sistencies exist.  How  thoroughly  men  accept  such 
women,  as  soon  as  they  are  permitted  to  try  their  ex- 
periment, we  may  judge  from  the  case  of  Florence 
Nightingale  and  her  staff.  The  very  men,  whose 
scepticism  kept  the  army  suffering  for  months,  would 
be  the  first  to  send  them  now;  and  the  soldiers,  who 
kissed  her  shadow  where  it  fell,  would  fill  the  whole 
Commissariat  with  women.  When  her  gentle  but 
efficient  hand  broke  in  the  doors  of  the  storehouses  at 
Scutari,  a  general  huzza  followed  from  the  very  men 
who  were  too  timid  to  break  the  trammels  of  office. 
The  woman's  keen  sympathy  with  the  advancing 
spirit  of  her  time,  taught  her  what  it  was  fit  to  do; 
and,  if  the  rippling  smiles  of  suffering  men  had  not 
rewarded  her  when  the  bedding  and  stores  were  dis- 
tributed, the  warm  encomiums  of  her  Queen,  whose 
heart  she  had  so  truly  read,  must  have  done  it.  Fol- 
lowing out  this  train  of  reflection,  I  have  often 
thought  it  would  some  day  fall  to  women,  and  to 
women  alone,  to  exercise  the  function  of  parish  min- 
ister! I  do  not  mean  "parish  preacher."  I  hold  pul- 
pit graces  cheap  by  the  side  of  that  fatherly  walk 
among  his  people,  which  has  made  the  name  of. 
Charles    Lowell   sacred   to   the    West    Church.      Go 


234  THE    MARKET. 

back  to  the  history  of  the  first  church  in  every  town 
see  how  the  minister  knew  the  story  of  every  heart  in 
his  parish;  how  he  kept  his  eye  on  every  lonely  boy 
or  orphan  girl;  how  widowed  mothers  took  his  coun- 
sel about  schools  and  rents;  how  forlorn  old  maids 
trusted  to  him  to  make  all  ''things  come  round  right;" 
how  the  lad,  inclining  to  wild  courses,  found  no  bet- 
ter friend  than  he.  How  is  it  now?  The  minister 
has  his  Sunday  sermons,  his  annual  addresses  before 
certain  societies,  his  weekly  association.  In  the  old 
time,  such  things  were  done,  yet  not  the  other  left 
undone.  Now  the  lonely  boy  or  orphan  girl  must 
seek  out  the  minister, — and  how  likely  this  is  to 
happen  everybody  knows;  the  mother  must  tell  over 
the  story  of  her  widowhood,  pained  to  see  how  ''in 
course"  it  falls  upon  that  wearied  ear;  the  spinster 
must  tell  again  how  the  boat  floated  empty  and  bot- 
tom upward  to  shore  long  years  ago,  and  so  no  one 
was  "spared  to  keep  all  right;"  and  the  wild  lad — 
alas!  how  many  such  do  the  clergy  save  now? 

As  I  see  such  things, — and  I  do  see  them  often, — 
as  I  realize  that  change  in  men  and  times,  in  manners 
and  books,  from  which  this  change  is  inseparable, — 
I  confess  I  see  a  new*  sphere  opening  for  women.  It 
takes  no  remarkable  gifts,  in  the  common  sense  of 
those  words;  only  a  kindly  heart,  a  thoughtful  head, 
a  tender,  reverent  care-taking,  wholly  apart  from  med- 
dlesomeness.    Not  many  are  the  ministers  now  who 

*  See  Appendix,  sketch  of  Mrs.  Roberts,  and  other  female  preachers. 


235 


will  pause  to  explain  to  Martha  that  she  is  careful 
and  troubled  about  many  things;  and  that  really  the 
visionary  Mary,  with  her  dreamy  eyes,  is  choosing  the 
good  part.  Not  many  can  see  Nathanael  standing 
under  the  fig-tree,  and  remind  him  of  it  at  the  needful 
moment.  But  if,  in  every  religious  household,  there 
were  a  deaconess,  called  by  nature  and  God  to  her 
work, — one  to  whom  the  young  felt  a  right  to  go 
with  questions  home  could  not  answer;  one  pledged 
to  secret  counsel,  with  whom  the  restless  and  un- 
happy might  confer, — it  seems  to  me  the  wheels  of 
life  would  move  more  smoothly.*    How  the  unlikeliest 


*  I  did  not  think,  certainly,  when  I  wrote  the  above  passage,  of  Arthur 
Helps's  "Companions  of  my  Solitude;"  but,  taking  up  the  book  during  a  day 
of  illness,  I  find  a  parallel  passage  in  what  he  writes  of  the  "sin  of  great  cities," 
In  speaking  of  the  many  excuses  which  ought  to  be  made  for  fallen  women 
he  says:  "And  then  there  is  nobody  into  whose  ear  the  poor  girl  can  pour  her 
troubles,  except  she  comes  as  a  beggar.  This  will  be  said  to  be  a  leaning,  on  my 
part,  to  the  confessional.  I  cannot  help  this:  I  must  speak  the  truth  that  is 
in  me." 

It  seems  to  me,  that  the  ' '  narrow  "  church,  against  which  so  much  is  intimated 
in  our  times,  is  nowhere  so  narrow  as  in  its  human  sympathies.  Oh  that  our 
clergymen  knew  how  many  utterly  friendless  souls  sit  before  them  clothed  in 
"purple  and  fine  linen"!  It  is  not  to  be  taken  for  granted,  that,  because  a 
woman  has  a  home,  a  father  and  mother,  and  a  genial,  social  circle,  she  has  a 
friend,  or  even  a  counsellor.  It  is  not  the  beggar-girl  alone  who  needs  a  ' '  Con- 
fessor" within  our  Protestant  churches.  Many  of  the  most  refined,  the  most 
noble,  and  the  most  wealthy,  are  hurried  into  unfit  marriages,  because  they  dare 
not  live  alone,  and  think  the  superficial  confidences  of  common  courtship  only 
a  prelude  to  something  deeper  which  never  comes. 

Why  should  not  the  "Comforter"  have  come  to  our  churches,  with  some 
special  significance,  before  this?  If  stout-hearted  Luther  could  say,  "When 
I  am  assailed  with  heavy  tribulations,  I  rush  out  among  my  pigs,  rather  than 
remain  alone  by  myself,"  why  should  any  of  us  blush  to  confess  our  need  of 
help?  Herein,  it  seems  to  me,  lies  the  vital  want  of  the  modern  church.  Here 
and  there,  the  rare  personal  gifts  of  a  single  pastor  lessen  the  evil:  but  what  we 
want,  in  every  religious  circle,  is  a  friend  to  whom  we  can  go,  without  the  small- 


236  THE    MARKET. 

persons  are  sometimes  raised  up  to  such  a  ministry, 
let  the  following  story  tell.  In  the  dim  and  dreary 
precincts  of  the  Seven  Dials  in  London,  years  ago, 
two  orphan  girls  were  left  lying  on  door-steps,  fed  by 
chance  charity,  to  grow  up  as  they  might.  One  died; 
and  the  other  was  finally  adopted  by  an  old  man,  an 
atheist,  who  had  been  neighbor  to  her  parents.  She 
grew  up  an  atheist  also,  and  married, — saved  by 
God's  mercy  from  what  had  seemed  her  likeliest  fate. 
Stepping  into  the  passage  of  the  Bloomsbury  Mission 
Hall  to  shelter  herself  from  the  rain,  one  night,  a 
shaft,  winged  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  struck  to  her  empty 
heart. 


est  danger  of  being  suspected  of  impertinence  or  egotism,  under  the  sanction 
of  the  divine  words,  "Bear  ye  one  another's  burdens."  The  burdens  of  temp- 
tation must  be  borne  alone;  but  the  burdens  of  poverty,  sickness,  and  grief, 
should  be  shared  in  every  Christian  church,  without  regard  to  the  social  con- 
dition of  the  sufferer.  Oftentimes  the  rich  man  is  poorer  than  the  pauper. 
I  know  all  the  objections  that  will  be  raised.  I  feel,  to  this  day,  how  I  saw  one 
clergyman  shrink,  years  ago,  from  a  tale  which  he  ought  to  have  heard  from 
one  agonized  woman's  lips;  and  how  others,  admirable  in  the  usual  pulpit  and 
pastoral  charge,  will  think  themselves  unfit  for  this.  Under  such  circumstances, 
let  a  clergyman  call  u'pon  those  of  his  congregation  who  are  willing  to  become 
the  friends  of  the  rest,  to  meet  in  his  study.  From  the  half-dozen  who  will  have 
at  once  the  modesty  and  the  courage  to  come  forward,  let  a  man  and  a  woman 
be  chosen  to  act  as  a  "Committee  of  Comfort."  This  might  be  done  with  the 
utmost  quietness;  the  minister  alone  need  know  the  names  of  those  willing  to 
serve;  but  if  it  were  an  understood  thing,  that  every  church  had  such  officers, 
the  blessing  would  be  beyond  belief. 

In  many  cases,  no  actual  help  could  be  given,  beyond  patient  listening,  a 
mutual  prayer,  or  tender  soothing ;  but  in  every  church  there  are  souls  that  need 
these  far  more  than  eloquent  preaching, — souls  that  ask  for  nothing,  except 
some  one  to  hear  and  consider  who  is  not  in  a  hurry,  some  one  to  appoint  those 
to  their  true  uses  who  stand  idle  in  a  waiting  world.  I  claim  such  an  institution 
for  the  sake  of  friendless  women;  but  such  substitutes  for  it  as  the  world  has 
hitherto  had,  have  been  by  no  means  useless  to  men. 


237 


The  next  week,  a  lending  library  was  to  be  opened 
in  the  district.  Marian  was  first  at  the  door.  ''Sir," 
said  she,  ''will  you  lend  me  a  Bible?"— "A  Bible!" 
exclaimed  the  man.  "We  did  not  mean  to  lend 
Bibles;  but  I  will  get  you  one." 

How  long  she  read,  how  she  was  at  first  moved, 
none  but  God  can  know.  But,  whether  from  mental 
distress  or  from  the  sad  vicissitudes  of  her  needy 
career,  she  became  very  ill,  and  went  to  a  public 
hospital.  While  there,  she  saw  the  sufferings  of  those 
who  applied  for  its  charity,  and  observed  that  the 
filthy  state  of  their  persons  needed  a  friendly  female 
hand.  When  she  came  out,  she  wrote  to  the  mission- 
ary, and  told  him  she  wished  to  dedicate  all  her  spare 
time  to  the  lost  and  degraded  of  her  own  sex.  "God's 
mercy,"  she  writes,  "has  spared  me  from  their  fate: 
for  me  their  misery  will  have  no  terrors.  I  will  clean 
and  wash  them,  and  mend  their  linen.  If  they  can 
get  into  a  hospital,  I  will  take  care  of  their  clothes." 
You  may  suppose  the  missionary  did  not  lose  sight 
of  Marian,  and  you  may  guess  how  gladly  she  under- 
took to  distribute  Bibles;  going,  where  none  of  the 
gentry  could  go,  into  dens  of  misery  known  only  to 
the  police-officers  and  herself.  Spending  her  morn- 
ings in  distributing  Bibles,  and  giving  the  kind  and 
pastoral  counsel  everywhere  needed,  she  discovered, 
in  the  autumn  of  1857,  a  new  want,  and  devoted  her 
afternoons  to  teaching  the  ignorant  women  about 
her  to  cut  and  make  their  children's  clothes.  Why 
she  knew  better  than  they,  who  shall  tell?    Then  came 


238  THE   MARKET. 

the  November  panic  and  its  wide-spread  distresses; 
and,  seeing  how  food  was  wasted  from  ignorance,  she 
opened  a  soup-kitchen  of  her  own.  She  used  what  is 
called  vegetable  stock:  her  wretched  customers  liked 
it,  and  she  sold  it  all  through  the  \^dnter  for  a  price 
which  just  paid  the  cost  of  cooking.  Her  noble  work 
goes  on.  The  stone  which  the  builders  of  our  modern 
society  would  have  rejected,  is  now  the  head  of  the 
corner;  and  Seven  Dials  knows  her  as  ''Marian,  the 
Bible-woman." 

Another  mission  has  been  begun  at  St.  Pancras, 
where,  in  one  of  the  worst  neighborhoods,  the  most 
profligate  men  have  gathered  together,  between  church 
hours,  to  hear  a  young  lady  read  the  '*  Pilgrim's  Prog- 
ress,'' and  are  thus  softened  and  led  to  higher  things. 
Would  you  shut  those  sacred  lips  because  they  are  a 
woman's?  Would  you  quote  St.  Paul  to  her,  and 
blush  for  her  career,  if  she  were  your  own  daughter? 
I  will  not  believe  it. 

At  the  parish  of  St.  Alkmunds,  in  Shrewsbury,  the 
wife  of  the  clergyman,  Mrs.  Whitman,  began  by  mod- 
est reading  from  house  to  house;  a  work  which  has 
since  been  greatly  blessed.  Gently  she  won  profli- 
gate men  and  women  to  give  up  their  beer,  and  the 
temptations  of  the  'Hap;"  signing  herself  the  pledge 
which  they  alone  needed. 

A  very  important  work  could  be  done  in  this  city 
by  the  establishment  of  a  proper  Training  School 
for  Servants.  One  reason  why  our  house-work  is 
80  miserably  done  is,  that   it  is  never  regarded  as 


239 


a  profession,  in  which  a  certain  degree  of  excel- 
lence must  be  attained,  but  rather  as  a  "make-shift," 
by  the  aid  of  which  a  certain  number  of  years  can 
be  got  through.  The  only  thorough  servant  I  ever 
had  was  one  who  had  been  educated  at  such  a 
school  in  Germany.  Here  would  be  an  admirable 
field  for  some  of  the  women  who  have  money  and 
time,  but  no  object  in  life.  Such  a  school  must  be 
carried  on  in  connection  with  a  good-sized  board- 
ing-house of  a  respectable  kind;  and  beside  the  reg- 
ular superintendents,  who  will,  of  course,  be  hired 
for  the  different  departments,  there  must  be  com- 
mittees of  ladies  who  should  see  to  the  practical 
working  of  the  institution  in  turn.  This  is  neces- 
sary to  secure  that  thorough  working  in  every  depart- 
ment which  the  best  housekeeping  demands.  Only 
by  intelligent,  refined  oversight  can  feathered  ''flirts'' 
be  hindered  from  taking  the  place  of  the  tidy  dust- 
ing cloth;  only  so  will  a  girl  learn  to  sweep  each 
apartment  separately,  without  dragging  her  accumu- 
lations from  floor  to  floor;  only  so  can  soap-suds 
be  kept  off  your  oil-cloths,  soiled  hands  from  your 
doors,  and  dust  from  your  shirt-fronts.  I  do  not 
believe  a  better  service  could  be  done  to  the  com- 
munity than  the  establishment  of  such  a  school, 
especially  in  relation  to   cooking.*     A  good  many 


*  I  must  suggest,  in  this  connection,  a  thought  which  I  have  not  had  time 
to  elaborate  in  the  text.  Very  much  needed  in  Boston  is  a  restaurant  for  the 
lower  classes,  presided  over  by  the  highest  skill  and  intelligence,  where  well- 
cooked,  well-flavored,  and  stimulating  food  could  be  offered  at  all  times;  and 
where  a  judicious  alternation  of  pea  soup,  baked  beans,  and  very  simple  dishes, 


240  THE    MARKET. 

such  experiments  have  been  successfully  tried  in 
England,  but  none  so  thorough  as  that  I  would  pro- 
pose in  Boston. 

With  regard  to  the  lowest  class  of  employed 
women,  such  as  are  employed  at  home,  we  have, 
it  seems  to  me,  several  distinct  duties  to  perform. 

In  the  first  place,  we  need  a  public  but  self-support- 
ing Laundry.  By  this  I  mean  two  large  halls,  with 
an  adjacent  area,  built  at  the  expense  of  the  city, 
and  properly  superintended,  where,  for  so  much  an 
hour,  women  of  the  lower  class  may  wash,  starch, 
dry,  and  iron  the  clothes  they  take  home.  A  bleach- 
ing-ground  would  be  desirable;  but,  if  it  could  not 
be  had,  a  steam  drying-room  would  be  the  next 
best  thing.  Good  starch,  soaps,  and  indigo  should 
be  for  sale  upon  the  premises  at  wholesale  prices; 
it  not  being  desirable  that  the  city  should  make 
money  out  of  the  necessities  of  its  poor.     If  such 


with  roast  meat  and  broths,  might  secure  daily  nourishment  for  a  very  low  price. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  very  cheap  food,  which  an  epicure  might  desire,  but  which 
the  poor  have  never  been  taught  to  prepare.  Hundreds  of  wretched  famiUes 
in  Boston  ought  never  to  try  to  make  a  cup  of  tea  for  themselves.  In  hot 
weather,  the  shavings  and  wood  necessary  to  boil  the  water  are  worth  as  much 
as  the  tea  itself.  Crime  of  all  sorts,  and  especially  intemperance,  will  retreat 
before  a  proper  provision  of  nourishing  and  stimulating  food  for  the  lower 
classes.  Gallons  of  oyster  liquor  are  thrown  away  every  day  by  dealers  who 
sell  the  fish  "solid,"  which  would  make  the  most  nourishing  of  soups  and  stews; 
for  no  food  replenishes  the  vital  essences  so  rapidly  as  the  oyster:  hence  its 
inseparable  connection  with  all  places  of  dissipation  and  vicious  resort.  If 
men  would  only  make  a  good  instead  of  an  evil  use  of  the  few  natural  secrets 
they  discover!  With  such  a  restaurant, — which  should,  of  course,  be  self- 
supporting, — a  capital  training-school  for  cooks  might  easily  be  associated; 
and  so  it  would  become  an  infinite  blessing,  in  the  end,  to  the  kind  hearts  and 
wise  heads  of  those  who  should  project  it. 


241 


an  establishment  could  be  had,  a  great  many  women 
would  be  changed  from  paupers  to  decent  citizens. 
They  are  tired  of  seeking  washing;  for,  in  their  one 
close  room,  scented  with  boiling  onions  or  rank 
meat,  without  a  proper  area  for  drying,  and  com- 
pelled to  pay  high  prices  for  poor  soap  and  starch, 
they  cannot  do  decently  the  very  work  which  phi- 
lanthropy soon  becomes  unwilling  to  intrust  to  them, 
and  for  which  they  are  compelled  to  charge  higher 
than  the  best  private  laundry.  The  city  could  buy 
coal,  wood,  soap,  starch,  and  indigo  at  manufac- 
turers' and  importers'  prices,  and  so  give  them  a  fair 
chance  for  competition.  I  hope  this  project,  long 
since  partially  adopted  in  many  cities  of  the  Old 
World,  may  find  favor  with  my  audience. 

There  is  in  Boston  no  place,  strange  as  it  may 
seem,  where  plain,  neatly  finished  clothing  can  be 
bought  ready-made.  I  can  go  down  town,  and  buy 
embroidered  merinos,  Paris  hats  with  ostrich  feathers, 
and  lace-trimmed,  welted  linen:  but  if  I  want  a  plain, 
cotton  skirt  for  a  child,  whereof  the  calico  was  eight 
cents  a  yard;  if  I  want  a  plain,  cotton  print  made 
into  a  neatly  fitting  dress;  if  I  want  a  boy's  coarse 
apron, — such  things  are  not  to  be  had,  or  only  so 
very  badly  made  that  no  one  will  buy  them.  I  do 
not  want  lace  or  embroidery  or  silk,  or  fine  linen; 
but  I  do  want  my  button-holes  nicely  turned  and 
strong,  my  hems  even,  my  gathers  stroked,  and,  how- 
ever plain  and  coarse,  the  whole  finish  of  the  gar- 
ment such  as  a  mistress  of  the  needle  only    would 

20 


242  THE    MARKET. 

approve,  such  as  no  lady  need  be  ashamed  to  wear. 
So  do  others.  The  reasons  given  to  explain  the 
non-existence  of  such  a  magazine  in  Boston  are, 
first,  That  our  women  of  the  middle  class  are,  for 
the  most  part,  accustomed  to  cut  and  make  their 
own  clothes;  second,  That  there  is  a  prevalent  but 
mistaken  idea,  that  clothes  made  for  sale  cannot 
possibly  fit.  With  regard  to  the  first  point,  it  may 
be  said,  that,  as  more  and  more  avenues  of  labor 
are  open  for  women,  this  class  perceives  that  it  is 
not  good  economy  for  them  to  do  their  own  sewing. 
Hands  compelled  to  coarser  or  heavier  labor  cannot 
sew  quick  or  well,  and  those  training  to  more  deli- 
cate manipulation  lose  practice  by  returning  to  it; 
so  there  will  be  a  constantly  increasing  class  of 
purchasers. 

As  to  the  impossibility  of  fitting,  that  is  a  vulgar 
mistake.  The  human  frame  is  quite  as  much  the 
result  of  law  as  Mr.  Buckle's  statistics.  Any  comely, 
healthy  form  is  a  good  model  for  all  other  forms  of 
the  same  height  and  breadth.  Who  ever  heard  of  a 
French  bonnet  or  a  bridal  trousseau  that  did  not 
fit?  yet  these  things  are  made  by  arbitrary  rules. 
Our  superintendent  could  find  every  measure  she 
would  ever  need  in  one  of  the  teeming  houses  on 
Sea  Street.  She  must  take  her  measures  from  life, 
not  books.  Nor  would  I  have  the  sewing  done  with 
machines,  unless  those  of  the  highest  cost  could  be 
procured  and  ably  superintended.  The  best  machine 
is  as  yet  a  poor  substitute  for  the  supple,  human 


''the  opening  of  the  gates."  243 

hand;  and  many  practical  inconveniences  must  re- 
sult from  its  use.  It  requires  more  skill  and  intel- 
ligence to  manage  man's  simplest  machine,  than  to 
control  with  a  thought  that  complicated  network 
of  nerve,  bone,  and  fibre  which  we  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  use. 

Capital  to  start  such  an  establishment  as  I  refer  to 
is  all  that  is  needed.  How  desirable  the  thing  is,  you 
can  easily  see.  In  the  first  place,  if  good  common 
clothing  could  be  so  purchased,  mothers  need  not  keep 
a  large  stock  on  hand:  an  accident  could  be  readily 
repaired.  In  the  second,  it  would  greatly  simplify  and 
expedite  many  a  charitable  task.  The  terrible  suffer- 
ing which  followed  the  panic  of  November,  1857,  you 
all  remember.  Purses,  always  open  hitherto,  were 
necessarily  closed;  no  Sister  of  Charity  was  willing 
to  tread  on  the  heels  of  the  sheriff:  yet  the  need  was 
greater  than  ever.  Many  persons  who  had  dismissed 
their  servants  were  found  willing  to  give  a  rough, 
untrained  girl  her  board;  but  who  was  to  provide  her 
with  decent  clothes?  They  could  not  be  bought,  and  to 
make  them  was  the  work  of  time  and  strength.  May 
I  always  remember  to  honor,  as  God  will  always  surely 
bless,  one  woman  possessed  of  wealth  and  beauty, 
who  did  clothe  from  head  to  foot  with  her  own  nee- 
dle, in  that  dreadful  winter,  three  ''wild  Irish  girls,'* 
and  took  them  successively  into  her  own  family;  train- 
ing them  to  habits  of  tolerable  decency,  until  others, 
less  self-sacrificing,  were  found  ready  to  do  their 
part! 


244  ■        THE    MARKET. 

No  people  in  our  community  suffer  such  inconve- 
nience, loss,  and  imposition,  in  having  their  clothes 
made,  as  our  servant  girls.  If  a  plentiful  supply  of 
calico  sacks  and  skirts  or  loose  dresses  could  be  any- 
where found,  few  girls  would  ever  employ  a  dress- 
maker. 

I  have  spoken  of  Public  Laundry  Rooms,  and  a 
Ready-made  Clothing  Room.  There  is  a  class  of 
women  greatly  to  be  benefited  by  the  establishment 
of  a  Knitting  Factory.  It  is  well  known  to  every 
person  in  this  room,  especially  to  physicians,  that  no 
knitting  done  by  machinery  can  compete  with  that 
done  by  the  human  hand,  in  durability,  warmth,  or 
stimulative  power.  Invalids  are  now  obliged  to  im- 
port the  Shetland  jackets,  which  are  always  badly 
shaped;  or  to  hire,  at  our  fancy  stores,  the  making  of 
delicate  and  very  expensive  fabrics.  Men's  socks  and 
children's  gloves  may  be  purchased;  but  the  first  cost 
from  seventy-five  cents  to  a  dollar  a  pair,  and  the  last 
are  of  very  inferior  manufacture.  We  cannot  give 
out  knitting  to  advantage,  because  of  the  dirt  and 
grease  it  is  liable  to  accumulate  where  water  is  not 
plenty  nor  ventilation  to  be  had;  and  very  good  knit- 
ters of  socks  have  not  skill  and  intelligence  to  man- 
age the  different  sizes,  or  to  shape  the  larger  articles, 
such  as  drawers  and  under-jackets  for  the  two  sexes. 
Coarse  crocheting  would  answer  better  than  knitting 
for  many  articles. 

Let  a  large  airy  room  be  hired,  well  supplied  with 
Cochituate.     Let  all  sorts  of  material  be  kept  on 


245 


hand,  and  some  coarse,  warm  kinds  of  Shetland  yarn 
imported '  that  are  now  to  be  had.  Let  at  least 
two  superintendents  be  appointed  from  among  the 
women  who  work  best  for  our  fancy  stores;  let 
knitting-women  be  invited  to  use  this  room  for 
twelve  hours  a  day,  or  less,  as  they  choose, — rreceiv- 
ing  daily  pay  for  their  daily  needs;  and  in  less  than 
one  year  you  would  have  an  establishment,  for  which 
not  merely  Boston,  but  all  New  England,  would  be 
grateful.  I  should  hope  that  neither  this  nor  the 
Clothing  Room  would  ever  offer  very  expensive  or 
highly  ornamental  articles  for  sale.  There  is  no  dan- 
ger that  the  interests  of  the  wealthy  will  suffer. 
What  I  desire  is  to  provide  for  the  needs  of  the  low- 
est women  and  the  comfort  of  the  middle-class  cus- 
tomer. 

The  young  girls  in  Beacon  Street  have  now  some- 
thing to  do.  I  offer  them  the  establishment  oi  a 
Training  School  for  Servants,  of  a  public  but  self- 
supporting  Laundry,  of  a  Ready-made  Clothes  Room, 
and  a  Knitting  Factory;  all  simple  matters,  entirely 
within  their  control,  if  they  would  but  believe  it. 

A  certain  human  faithfulness  often  interferes  with 
the  execution  of  such  plans.  If  my  young  friends 
doubt,  let  them  go  and  talk  to  Harriet  Ryan  about  it. 
She  will  show  them,  how,  having  taken  the  first  step, 
toward  duty,  God  always  leads  the  way  to  the  sec- 
ond. To  cheer  them  still  further,  I  will  tell  them — 
for  I  may  never  have  a  fitter  opportunity — of  the 
splendid  success  of  the  industrial  schools  in  Ireland, 


246  THE    MARKET. 

established  in  1850  by  Ellen  Woodlock, — a  name 
destined  to  stand  honorably  by  the  side  of  Florence 
Nightingale;  and,  worthy  to  precede  it,  in  so  far  as 
preventive  measures  are  always  a  greater  good  than 
remedial.  Mrs.  Ellen  Woodlock  has  powers  of  state- 
ment, according  to  the  ''London  Times,"  equal  to  her 
extraordinary  powers  of  execution;  and  it  is  from 
her  own  account  of  the  work  that  I  select  what  I 
have  to  offer  you. 

In  1850,  Mrs.  Woodlock  had  placed  her  only  child 
at  school,  and  began  to  look  for  something  to  do.  A 
lady,  who  had  started  an  industrial  school  on  a  gift  of 
$250  from  a  clergyman,  asked  for  her  help.  She  pro- 
posed to  teach  young  girls  to  do  plain  sewing.  Very 
soon,  there  were  more  seamstresses  than  customers; 
but  God  did  not  fail  to  open  a  way.  One  poor,  half- 
blind  creature — very  poor  and  very  earnest — failed 
in  the  plain  sewing,  and  was  put  to  make  cabbage 
nets.  She  did  it  so  well,  that  Mrs.  Woodlock  taught 
her  to  make  silk  nets  for  the  hair.  The  nets  took: 
other  girls  were  taught;  and  Mrs.  Woodlock  went  to 
all  the  shops  in  Cork,  and  coaxed  the  merchants 
to  buy  of  her.  She  very  soon  began  to  make  nets 
for  exportation.  Mrs.  Woodlock's  fashionable  niece 
arrived  from  Dublin,  with  a  new  style  of  crocheted 
net.  Her  aunt  had  a  dozen  made  directly;  and,  by 
showing  these,  got  orders  from  all  the  merchants 
for  the  new  style.  One  day,  a  merchant  came  into 
the  school,  and  saw  a  little  girl  at  work  on  a  mohair 
net.     He  asked  the  price,  and  found  that  she  would 


"the  opening  of  the  gates/'  247 

make  him  twelve  for  the  same  money  that  he  had 
paid  for  one  in  London.  So  you  may  guess  where 
his  next  orders  went. 

Mrs.  Woodlock  then  made  interest  with  the  "buy- 
ers," or  young  men  who  go  to  London  twice  a  year  to 
purchase  goods.  They  took  over  her  patterns,  and 
returned  with  orders  so  large  that  their  principals  at 
once  entered  into  the  business.  Yellow  nets  were 
made  for  Germany.  Many  were  sent  to  England 
and  America;  and  orders  came  so  thick  that  they 
had  to  share  them  with  the  convent  schools.  They 
paid  out  a  hundred  dollars  weekly;  and  alacrity  and 
intelligence  beamed  where  there  had  been,  at  first, 
only  hopeless  suffering  and  imbecility.  Of  course, 
this  point  was  not  reached  without  much  self-sacri- 
fice. At  first,  the  children  made  awkward  work  that 
would  not  sell.  Then  the  lady  patronesses  got  tired, 
and  dropped  off.  Worn  and  worried,  Mrs.  Woodlock 
fell  ill.  If  you  ever  undertake  any  of  these  schemes  I 
have  mentioned,  you  must  be  prepared  for  all  these 
things :  they  will  certainly  happen.  No  one  ever  fought 
a  revolutionary  war,  and  established  an  independence, 
without  one  or  two  defeats  like  that  at  Bunker  Hill.* 
When  they  become  historic,  we  call  them  victories. 
When  Mrs.  Woodlock  found  that  she  was  human  and 


*  This  allusion  was  made  before  an  American  audience,  to  show  that  the 
defeats  suffered  in  a  noble  cause  are  honored  in  time  as  victories.  So  strong 
is  our  popular  delusion  on  this  point,  that  few  of  the  common  people  can  be 
found  willing  to  believe  that  we  were  actually  defeated  at  Bunker  Hill.  It 
was  our  "first  battle."     All  honor  to  all  such! 


248  THE   MARKET. 

liable  to  fall  ill,  she  sent  for  some  Sisters  of 
Charity,  and  trained  several,  so  that  they  could,  on  an 
emergency,  fill  her  place  well. 

But  Mrs.  Woodlock  did  not  stop  here.  She  used  to 
teach  the  Catechism  in  the  parish  church;  and,  one 
day  she  gave  notice  that  a  new  school  would  be 
opened  in  that  neighborhood.  The  next  morning, 
one  hundred  and  fifty  girls,  between  the  ages  of  fif- 
teen and  twenty-five,  presented  themselves.  Mrs. 
Woodlock  asked  every  girl,  who  had  ever  earned  any 
money  before  to  hold  up  her  hand.  Four  girls  did 
so.  They  had  sold  apples  in  the  streets.  One  hun- 
dred and  forty-six  suffering  creatures,  who  had  no 
way  to  earn  a  cent!  Think  what  a  class  it  was!  Do 
you  remember  what  I  told  you,  the  other  day,  of 
eighteen  hundred  and  eighty  women  in  New  York 
who  had  never  been  taught  to  support  themselves? 
Ten  of  the  best  workers  from  the  first  school  were 
taken  to  teach  these  girls;  and,  for  a  salary,  the 
teacher  received  the  first  perfect  dozen  of  nets  made 
by  each  of  her  pupils.  This  plan  was  not  costly,  and 
worked  well.  There  was  no  lack  of  faithfulness. 
Travellers  came  to  see  the  schools.  There  was  no 
time  wasted  in  looking  for  orders:  they  had  more 
than  they  could  fill.  Of  course,  they  must  keep  these 
hands  employed:  so  other  manufactures  must  be 
tried.  Mrs.  Woodlock  thought  she  would  try  fine  shirt 
fronts  for  tjie  city  dealers.  What  do  you  think  the 
people  said?  That  it  could  not  be  done  in  all  Ire- 
land; that  there  was  nobody  to  wash  and  iron  them 


24^ 


properly;  that  they  would  have  to  be  sent  all  the  way 
to  Glasgow  to  be  boxed  in  card  boxes!  Well,  the 
nuns  undertook  the  first  washing  and  ironing, — mak- 
ing apprentices,  let  us  hope,  of  some  of  the  older 
pupils;  and  Mrs.  Woodlock  found  a  starving  band-box 
maker,  whom  she  herself  taught  to  make  flat  boxes. 
And  look  now  at  the  blessing  which  always  follows 
wise  work.  This  flat-box  maker  has  had  to  take  ap- 
prentices, has  opened  another  branch  of  her  business  in 
Limerick,  and  has  put  money  into  the  Savings'  Bank. 

Mrs.  Woodlock's  account  of  her  work  would  be  a 
great  help  to  any  young  persons  engaged  in  philan- 
thropic effort.  She  lays  the  very  greatest  stress  upon 
her  machinery, — her  methods.  Every  industrial  work 
ought  to  support  itself:  if  it  does  not,  it  is  a  failure. 
All  her  schools  earn  their  own  bread,  in  every  sense; 
and  all  reforming  agencies  must  always  stand  second 
to  any  institution  which  does  that.  See  how  she  car- 
ried this  thought  into  her  daily  life.  Mrs.  Woodlock 
had  a  brother  who  was  one  of  the  Board  of  Poor-Law 
Guardians.  Seeing  the  success  of  her  work,  he  per- 
suaded the  other  members  to  employ  an  embroidery 
mistress  in  the  Union  School  for  a  few  months. 

When  these  children  knew  enough,  Mrs.  Woodlock 
took  out  six,  and  put  them  into  her  industrial  school, 
till  she  was  sure  they  could  support  themselves. 
Then  she  let  them  look  up  lodgings,  and  continued 
to  give  them  work  from  the  school.  In  a  few  weeks, 
they  got  on  so  well  that  they  began  to  take  their  rela- 
tions  and   friends   out   of   that   terrible   poorhouse. 


250  THE    MARKET. 

Three  young  girls  took  out  their  mother  and  cousin, 
and  supported  them.  Eighty  girls  were  brought  off 
the  parish  by  the  first  working  of  her  schools.  A 
house  has  also  been  opened  for  orphans,  where  they 
are  trained  to  support  themselves. 

Now,  my  friends,  the  census,  at  the  end  of  ten 
years,  will  report  a  great  change  in  the  industrial 
condition  of  Ireland;  and  the  beginning  of  that 
change  was  Mrs.  Woodlock's  intelligent  moral  effort 
to  benefit  her  countrywomen, — in  the  first  place,  to 
teach  one  little  sufferer  to  make  cabbage-nets.  That 
element  will  enter  into  the  statistics  on  which  Mr. 
Buckle  bids  you  so  confidently  rely.  Do  not  believe 
him  when  he  says  that  moral  effort  can  never  help 
anybody  but  yourself,  because  it  will  be  balanced,  in 
the  long-run,  by  your  neighbor's  immoral  effort.  Two 
and  two  make  four  in  statistics,  and  always  will 
while  the  world  stands;  but  two  and  two  and  one 
make  five,  and  not  four,  as  he  asserts;  and  the  one 
which  he  forgets  to  enumerate  is  no  other  than  the 
divine  Centre  of  life  and  action, — God  himself.  I 
value  Mr.  Buckle's  book.  I  see  how  clearly  he 
thinks;  how  much  he  has  read;  and  how  much  truer 
his  historical  attitude  than  any  ever  before  assumed. 
But  when  a  man  separates  goodness  from  knowledge; 
tells  you  that  intelligence  may  reign  alone;  does  not 
see  that  the  two  are  now  and  for  ever  one,  equal 
attributes  of  the  divine  nature, — then  he  makes  a 
mistake  which  saps  the  very  foundation  of  his  own 
work,  and  writes  fallacy  on  every  page. 


251 


What  he  says  is  perfectly  true  of  mistaken,  ignorant 
moral  effort.  That  does  help  yourself,  and  does  not 
help  anybody  else.  It  helps  you,  because  it  develops 
your  right-mindedness, — your  generosity.  It  does 
not  help  anybody  else.  It  hinders  others  who  are 
clearer  intellectually:  they  see  and  despise  the  mis- 
takes, and  are  not  inspired  by  the  purpose.  Had  it 
been  intelligent,  they  would  have  seen  it  to  be  divine. 

Mrs.  Woodlock's  work  was  both  intelligent  and 
moral.  What  inspired  the  pupils  was  her  moral  force 
and  disinterested  love.  They  saw  this,  and  were  kin- 
dled by  it;  while  the  community  at  large  respected  the 
intelligence  and  common  sense  with  which  she  laid 
her  plans.  Intelligence  made  these  plans  self-sup- 
porting; intelligence  gave  them  solid  pyramidal  posi- 
tion in  the  world:  but  moral  energy  gave  them  their 
prestige,  and  will  win  its  way  by  the  side  of  intelli- 
gence into  the  very  columns  which  Mr.  Buckle's 
closing  volume  must  quote. 

Do  not  be  disheartened,  then,  as  to  the  ultimate 
profit  to  others  of  any  kindly  work  you  feel  inclined 
to  do.  Let  kindliness  inspire,  let  intelligence  direct, 
your  efforts.  God  has  made  your  success  certain 
from  the  very  foundations  of  the  world. 

I  cannot  close  such  inadequate  survey  of  this  field 
as  I  have  felt  it  my  duty  to  offer,  without  alluding  to 
one  other  fact,  and  making  one  parting  suggestion. 
It  cannot  but  be  realized,  by  all  the  women  to  whom 
I  speak,  how  very  casual  is  the  communication 
between  the  laboring  class  in  this  community  and 


252  THE   MARKET. 

their  employers.  Suppose  a  housekeeper  wants  addi- 
tional service,  how  can  she  secure  it?  If  she  is  not 
wealthy  enough  to  hire  regularly,  her  ''chance"  is  a 
very  poor  one;  and  she  must  take  the  recommenda- 
tion, in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  of  some  one  in  the 
charwoman's  own  rank  of  life. 

Suppose  a  maid  of  all  work  leaves  a  mistress  alone 
early  some  busy  Monday  morning,  where  can  her 
place  be  filled?  How  can  any  one  be  found  who 
will  work  by  the  hour  or  the  day,  in  a  cleanly,  respect- 
able manner,  till  .a  new  servant  can  be  deliberately 
chosen?  Nobody  knows  of  a  washer-woman  who  is 
out  of  work  on  Monday.  The  intelligence  offices 
hold  no  women  so  distressed  that  they  will  go  out  for 
less  than  a  week,  and  that  on  trial.  Yet,  somewhere 
in  the  city,  there  must  be  women  pining  and  longing 
for  that  waiting  work. 

Suppose  a  sudden  influx  of  visitors  exhausts  your 
household  staff,  and  makes  a  waiting-maid  a  necessity 
where  none  was  kept  before;  suppose  a  large  group 
of  relatives,  passing  quickly  through  the  city,  come 
for  a  plain  family  dinner  at  a  moment  when  your  per- 
sonal superintendence  is  impossible, — where  is  the 
active,  tidy  girl  who  can  be  summoned,  or  the  decent 
woman  of  experience  who  can  order  matters  in  your 
kitchen  as  well  as  you  can  yourself? 

Somewhere  they  sit  waiting — suffering,  it  may  be 
— for  the  opportunity  which  never  comes.  The  in- 
telligence office  will  get  them  places;  but  places  they 
are  not  at  liberty  to  seek.  They  need  what  they  call 
**a  chance  lift." 


253 


I  am  well  aware  that  wealthy  land  long-established 
famiUes  may  not  suffer  much  from  this  cause.  Old 
servants  well  married,  or  a  variety  of  well-paid  ser- 
vants with  wide  connections  in  the  neighborhood,  or 
deserving  objects  of  charity  personally  met  and  under- 
stood, often  prevent  such  persons  from  feehng  any 
inconvenience;  but  for  young  housekeepers,  for  new 
residents,  for  persons  of  small  means  and  few  con- 
nections, there  is  no  help. 

I  need  not  enlarge  on  the  subject.  There  is  no 
kind  of  female  labor  of  which  it  is  easy  to  get  a 
prompt  and  suitable  supply.  To  obviate  this  dif- 
ficulty, I  think  there  should  be  a  sort  of  "Labor 
Exchange;"  and  this  is  a  project  which  all  classes 
would  be  glad  to  have  carried  out.  How  shall  it  be 
done?  That,  of  course,  must  be  settled  by  those  who 
have  the  task  in  charge;  but,  to  explain  what  I  mean, 
I  will  offer  a  few  suggestions.  In  the  first  place, 
What  are  the  defects  in  the  intelligence-offices  now  in 
existence?  *     There   are  several.     They  take   cogni- 


*  I  cannot  allude  to  the  subject  of  Intelligence-offices  without  saying,  that 
all  such  institutions  ought  to  be  brought,  in  some  new  and  effective  manner, 
under  public  supervision  and  control. 

A  private  IntelUgence-office,  kept  in  the  superintendent's  own  house,  cannot 
be  interfered  with,  unless  it  can  be  proved  a  nuisance;  and  how  difficult  it  is  to 
abate  a  nuisance  I  need  not  tell  anybody  who  has  ever  tried  the  exi>eriment. 

The  keeper  of  a  General  or  Public  Intelligence-office  makes  application  for 
a  license  to  the  city  government,  sustained  by  a  certain  number  of  respectable 
vouchers,  and  pays,  I  believe,  a  yearly  fee  of  one  dollar. 

This  looks  fair  enough;  and,  if  every  officer  of  the  city  government,  from 
the  lowest  police-officer  to  the  mayor,  were  immaculate,  it  would  be  so;  but 
we  all  know  what  the  fact  is.  It  is  an  open  secret,  that,  in  all  our  largest  cities, 
the  marts  of  vice  are  stocked  from  these  places,  and  that  they  serve  the  pur 


254  ^  THE   MARKET. 

zance  of  domestic  servants  alone.  They  are  kept  by 
ignorant  or  inexperienced  persons,  who  often  lose 
sight  of  the  interests  of  both  the  employer  and  the 
employed  in  their  own  pecuniary  loss  or  gain.  These 
persons  have  necessarily  little  insight  into  character, 
and  do  not  see  how  to  bring  the  right  persons  together. 
They  will  send  a  slow,  dawdling  girl  to  an  impatient, 
lively  mistress; — a  smart  upstart  to  some  meek,  little 
wife,  who  has  hardly  learned  the  way  to  order  her  own 
house;  and  the  natural  misunderstandings  will  occur. 
Then  the  books  of  the  office  are  irregularly  kept,  and 
closed  to  the  applicant,  so  that  you  have  no  chance  to 
select  for  yourself.  Go  down  to  an  office,  and  ask  for 
a  servant;  tell  the  keeper  not  to  send  a  raw  girl,  not 
to  send  one  without  a  recommendation,  not  to  send  a 
foreigner  who  cannot  speak  English;  and  go  home. 
The  odds  are,  that,  while  you  are  taking  off  your 
bonnet,  there  will  be  three  rings  at  the  bell.     The 


poses  of  bad  men  better  than  houses  of  professedly  vicious  resort.  One  of  the 
most  excellent  and  respectable  women  I  know,  who  superintends  one  of  these 
oflBces,  told  me  herself  that  four  ^omen  made  assignations  on  her  premises,  and 
went  out  of  her  office  to  keep  them,  without  her  having  power  to  prevent  it. 
She  proved  the  correctness  of  her  suspicions  by  employing  one  of  her  vouchers 
to  watch  the  result.  If  this  happens  under  the  eyes  of  the  virtuous  and  vigilant, 
what  may  not  happen  when  the  head  of  the  establishment  is  in  the  pay  of  in- 
terested parties?  I  do  not  know  in  what  way  this  wickedness  can  be  broken  up; 
but,  in  the  words  of  Dr.  Gannett,  "what  rmist  be  done,  can  be."  Is  it  not  a 
terrible  thought,  that  fashionable  women  and  tender  girls  should  supply  them- 
selves with  servants  from  the  very  brink  of  that  hell  they  believe  they  have 
never  touched?  Is  it  not  a  far  more  terrible  thought,  that  an  innocent  stranger 
cannot  seek  her  daily  bread  without  running  the  risk  of  certain  perdition? 
How  real  these  possibilities  are,  there  are  those  in  this  city  able  to  testify. 

Ought  not  the  ministers  at  large,  of  all  denominations,  and  our  overseers  of 
the  poor,  to  unite  in  prompt  and  efficient  action  in  this  regard? 


255 


first  girl  will  be  a  barefooted  imp  of  Erin,  just  from 
the  steerage.  Some  one  at  the  office  has  been  watch- 
ing three  days  for  just  such  a  hand  to  be  broken  into 
a  farm-kitchen.  The  second  wears  a  flower-garden 
on  her  head,  more  flounces  than  you  do,  and  has,  of 
course,  no  recommendation.  Some  soda-room  wants 
her;  but  you  do  not.  The  third  is  high  Dutch,  and, 
when  you  ask  her  for  the  coal-hod,  brings  you,  in  her 
despair,  the  bread-tray.  Neither  of  these  three  is 
what  you  ordered  or  wanted. 

Do  you  ask  me  the  reason  of  this  bad  management, 
and  whether  I  think  it  can  be  remedied?  The  reason 
of  it  is,  that  the  superintendence  of  these  offices  is 
not  treated  like  a  profession.  People  neither  fit  them- 
selves for  it,  nor  are  attracted  to  it  by  nature:  they 
simply  do  it;  and  how  they  do  it  we  feel.  They 
want  comprehensive  insight,  have  no  business  ways, 
and  these  difficulties  are  only  to  be  obviated  by  bring- 
ing a  higher  intelligence  to  bear  upon  the  arrange- 
ments. 

Let  us  have  a  place  where  all  kinds  of  female  work 
can  be  sought  and  found;  an  intelligent  working  com- 
mittee first,  who  know  what  is  wanted,  and  how  to 
get  it,  and  who,  most  important  of  all,  shall  not  be. 
too  wise  to  accept  diplomas  from  experience. 

Let  us  have  a  committee  of  five;  its  quorum  to  be 
three.  Let  these  persons  hire  a  large,  clean,  airy 
room,  and  appoint  an  intelligent  superintendent, — 
one  who  will  be  interested  to  have  the  experiment 
thoroughly  successful.     Let  them  line  the  walls,  and 


256  THE    MARKET. 

screen  off  the  room  with  frames,  having  glass  covers, 
to  lock  and  unlock.  Let  one  frame  be  devoted  to 
cooks;  another,  to  laundresses;  another,  to  washer- 
women, window-washers,  charwomen,  seamstresses, 
dressmakers,  copyists,  translators,  or  what  you  will; 
and  under  the  glass  the  notices  should  be  posted. 
Each  should  contain  the  name,  age,  and  residence  of 
the  applicant;  the  situation  last  held,  and  for  how 
long;  the  full  address  of  the  reference;  and  the  date 
of  posting.  The  date  should  be  printed  and  mova- 
ble, and  changed  semi-weekly,  on  the  personal  appli- 
cation of  the  poster.  Each  woman  should  pay  five 
cents  for  the  privilege  of  posting;  should  lose  this 
privilege  from  misconduct,  from  neglect  to  report  her- 
self, from  proved  falsehood.  No  date  should  be  left 
unchanged  more  than  a  week,  and  the  superintendent 
should  be  responsible  for  the  strict  observance  of  the 
regulations.  No  woman,  not  even  a  charwoman, 
should  be  allowed  to  use  the  posting  privilege,  unless 
she  had  a  reference.  ''What!"  you  will  say,  '4s  that 
kind?"  Yes,  it  is  kind:  the  want  of  it  is  doubly 
cruel.  A  woman  who  needs  work  can  afford  to  offer 
a  day's  free  work  to  get  a  reference;  and  referees 
should  be  required  to  tell  the  simple  truth.  A  lady 
who  once  recommended  a  dishonest  or  incapable 
servant  without  the  proper  qualification  should  be 
struck  off  the  books,  not  allowed  to  testify  again  in 
that  court. 

With  regard  to  all  transient  labor,  it  should  be  the 
duty  of  the  superintendent  to  see  that  the  references 


257 


are  reliable  before  posting,  so  that  those  who  apply  in 
haste  need  not  be  delayed. 

If  a  dressmaker  or  charwoman  inform  the  super- 
intendent that  she  has  worked  for  A,  B,  aftd  C,  let  a 
printed  circular,  addressed  to  such  persons,  inquiring 
if  they  can  recommend  her,  and  to  what  degree,  be 
placed  in  her  hands.  To  this  she  should  bring  written 
answers  before  being  allowed  fco  post. 

If  the  institution  became  popular,  books  would 
have  to  be  kept,  corresponding  to  these  glass  cases 
— one  book  for  cooks,  another  for  housemaids,  and 
so  on;  but  the  cases  should  never  be  given  up. 
There  should  always  be  as  many  as  the  room  will 
hold.  Ladies  should  pay  a  certain  sum  for  each 
servant  they  obtain;  and  the  servant  should  pay 
for  every  place  she  gets,  at  a  rate  proportioned  to 
the  wages  received.  In  most  intelligence  offices,  the 
servants  get  two  places  for  the  same  fee,  if  they 
do  not  stay  over  a  week  in  the  place,  and  the  lady 
gets  two  girls  or  more  on  the  same  condition.  This 
works  like  a  premium  on  change  of  place.  The  ser- 
vant should  prove  to  the  Labor  Exchange,  that 
she  did  not  leave  her  place  of  her  own  will,  and 
the  lady  should  show  that  incapacity  or  insubordi- 
nation made  it  impossible  to  keep  her. 

It  should  be  a  cash  business,  and  a  fee  should 
be  paid  for  each  application.  Wanting  a  cook,  you 
go  down  to  the  room,  and  consult  the  proper  frame. 
Finding,  perhaps,  forty  posters,  you  select  one  that 
reads  like  this: — 

21 


258  THE   MARKET. 

Matilda  Haynes. 

Irish. 

Twenty-five  years  of  age. 

In  the  country  four  years. 

Thoroughly  understands  plain  cooking. 

Expects  two  dollars. 

Is  willing  to  go  out  of  town. 

Lived  last  at  No.  4,  Pemberton  Square. 

Kept  the  place  six  months. 

May  refer  to  it. 

Can  be  found  at  24,  High  Street. 

You  first  go  to  Pemberton  Square.  It  is  quite 
possible  that  this  girl  may  not  be  what  you  want; 
but  if  she  is,  and  your  eye  tells  you  that  you  can 
trust  the  judgment  of  her  referee,  you  have  only  to 
go  to  High  Street,  ahd  make  your  own  terms.  If 
you  are  already  prejudiced  in  her  favor,  you  will 
go  prepared  to  make  some  concessions,  so  that  the 
chance  will  be  better  for  you  both;  and  this  pro- 
cess may  be  repeated  without  loss  of  time,  till  you 
are  supplied. 

You  will  see  that  this  is  quite  a  feasible  plan, 
and  has  two  advantages.  One  is,  that  you  have 
access  to  the  books,  and  can  choose  for  yourself; 
the  other  is,  that  there  would  be  no  waiting-room 
for  servants,  where  they  should  talk  with,  prejudice, 
and  morally  harm  each  other.  You  would  also  be 
saved  the  pain  of  rejecting  servants  to  their  faces, 
on  the  ground  of  ''greenness,"  or  bodily  unfitness. 
Such  an  institution  would  offer  this  advantage  over 
the  present  offices,  that  it  would  direct  you  to  tem- 


"the  opening  of  the  gates."  259 

porary  laborers,  and  give  you  in  a  moment  the  ad- 
dresses of  some  dozens.  Such  an  institution  would 
be  a  very  great  saver  of  time,  and  so  a  great  bless- 
ing. 

If,  in  the  course  of  these  lectures,  any  words  that 
I  have  spoken  have  touched  your  hearts,  or  carried 
conviction  to  your  minds,  do  not  put  aside,  I  be- 
seech you,  such  impulse  as  they  may  have  given. 
Remember  that,  however  feebly  the  subject  has  been 
treated,  however  presumptuous  may  seem  the  at- 
tempt, the  subject  itself  is  the  most  important  theme 
that  is  presented  to  this  generation.  In  my  first 
lecture  I  showed  you,  that  while  women,  ever  since 
the  beginning  of  civilization,  have  been  sharing  the 
hardest,  and  doing  the  most  unwholesome  work, 
they  have  also  done  the  worst  paid  in  the  world. 
I  showed  you  that  this  poor  pay,  founded  on  a 
false  estimate  of  woman's  value  as  a  human  being, 
and  consequently  as  a  laborer,  was  filling  your  streets 
with  criminals,  with  stricken  souls  and  bodies,  for 
whose  blood  society  is  responsible  to  God.  Having 
proved  thus,  that  women  need  new  avenues  of  labor, 
I  tried  in  my  second  lecture  to  show  you,  that,  when 
she  sought  ihese,  she  had  been  met  too  often  by  the 
selfish  opposition  of  man.  I  showed  also  that  all 
such  opposition  proved,  in  the  end,  unavailing;  that 
all  the  work  she  asks  will  inevitably  be  given.  I 
showed  you,  from  the  censuses  of  Great  Britain 
and  America,  how  much  labor  is  even  now  open 
to  her;  that  it  is  not  half  so  necessary  to  open  new 


260  THE   MARKET. 

avenues  of  labor  as  to  make  work  itself  respectable 
for  women;  and  I  therefore  entreated  women  to  learn 
to  work  thoroughly  and  well,  that  men  might  re- 
spect their  labor  in  the  aggregate.  ''Woman's  work" 
means  nothing  very  honorable  or  conscientious  now. 
Alter  its  significance  till  it  indicates  the  best  work 
in  the  world. 

In  my  present  lecture  I  have  indicated  some  of 
the  steps  that  might  be  taken  to  benefit  the  women 
in  the  heart  of  this  city.  To  encourage  you  to  take 
them,  I  have  briefly  pointed  out  Ellen  Woodlock's 
remarkable  success.  Have  I  kindled  any  interest 
in  your  minds?  Can  you  enter  into  such  labors? 
Have  you  strength  or  time  or  enthusiasm  to  spare? 
In  the  ballads  of  Northern  Europe,  a  loving  sister  trod 
out,  with  her  bare  feet,  the  nettles  whose  fibre,  woven 
into  clothing,  might  one  day  restore  her  brothers  to 
huinan  form. 

Your  feet  are  shod,  your  nettles  are  gathered:  will 
you  tread  them  out  courageously,  and  so  restore  to 
your  sisters  the  nature  and  the  privileges  of  a  blessed 
humanity? 

Opportunity  is  a  rare  and  sacred  thing.  God 
seldom  offers  it  twice.  In  the  English  fields,  the 
little  Drosera,  or  sundew,  lifts  its  tiny,  crimson  head. 
The  delicate  buds  are  clustered  in  a  raceme,  to  the 
summit  of  which  they  climb  one  by  one.  The  top- 
most bud  waits  only  through  the  twelve  hours  of  a 
single  day  to  open.  If  the  sun  do  not  shine,  it  withers 
and  drops,  and  gives  way  to  the  next  aspirant. 


261 


So  it  is  with  the  human  heart  and  its  purposes. 
One  by  one,  they  come  to  the  point  of  blossoming. 
If  the  sunshine  of  faith  and  the  serene  heaven  of 
resolution  meet  the  ripe  hour,  all  is  well;  but  if  you 
faint,  repel,  delay,  they  wither  at  the  core,  and  your 
crown  is  stolen  from  you, — your  privilege  set  aside. 
Esau  has  sold  his  birthright,  and  the  pottage  has 
lost  its  savor. 


THE  COURT; 

OR, 

WOMAN'S  POSITION  UNDER  THE  LAW. 
IN  THREE  LECTURES, 

DELIVERED   IN   BOSTON,   JANUARY,  1861 

I. — ^The  Oriental  Estimate  and  the  French  Law. 
II. — ^The  English  Common  Law. 
III. — The  United-States  Law,  and  some  Thoughts  on  Hu- 
man Rights. 


"Kind  gentlemen,  your  pains 
Are  registered  where  every  day  I  turn 
The  leaf  to  read  them." 

Macbeth. 

"Some  reasons  of  this  double  coronation 
I  have  possessed  you  with,  and  think  them  strong." 

"Why  do  you  bend  such  solemn  brows  on  me? 
Have  I  commandment  on  the  pulse  of  life?" 

King  John, 

"According  to  the  fair  play  of  the  world, 
Let  me  have  audience.     I  am  sent  to  speak." 

King  John. 

"Let  this  be  copied  out, 
And  keep  it  safe  for  our  remembrance. 
Return  the  precedent  to  these  lords  again." 

King  John. 


THE  COURT. 


THE  ORIENTAL  ESTIMATE  AND  THE  FRENCH  LAW. 

"  It  was  not  Zeus  who  uttered  this  decree, 
Or  Justice,  dwelhng  with  the  gods  below : 
Nor  did  I  think  thy  will  such  power  possessed, 
That  thou,  a  mortal,  could  o'errule  the  laws 
Unwritten  and  immovable  of  God." 

Antigone:  Sophocles. 

"We  seldom  doubt  that  something  in  the  large 
Smooth  order  of  creation,  though  no  more 
Than  haply  a  man's  footstep,  has  gone  wrong." 

E.  B.  Browning. 

"The  law  of  God,  positive  law  and  positive  morahty,  sometimes 
coincide,  sometimes  do  not  coincide,  and  sometimes  conflict,'* 
— John  Austin  :  Province  of  Jurisprudence  Defined. 

''/^~\F  Law,  no  less  can  be  said  than  that  her  seat  is 
^-^  the  bosom  of  God;  her  voice,  the  harmony  of 
the  spheres.  All  things  in  heaven  and  earth  do  her 
reverence;  the  greatest  as  needing  her  protection,  the 
meanest  as  not  afraid  of  her  power." 

In  reading  this  magnificent  and  well-known  sen- 
tence from  Hooker,  the  imagination  is  easily  kindled 
to  a  divine  prescience.  We  accept  the  definition. 
Fair  before  us  rise  the  graceful  proportions  of  eternal 
order  in  society,  upon  which  wait  present  peace  and 

[265] 


266  THE    COUKT. 

future  progress;  towards  which  those  bow  most  rev- 
erently who  live  most  purely  and  see  most  clearly. 
But  alas!  if  the  reader  be  a  woman,  her  heart  may 
well  sink  when  the  enthusiasm  of  the  "moment  has 
passed;  and  she  must  ask,  with  a  feeling  somewhat 
akin  to  displeasure,  ''Of  what  law  reaUzed  on  earth, 
administered  in  courts,  dealt  out  from  legislatures  or 
parliaments,  from  republics  or  autocrats,  were  these 
sublime  words  written?" 

Where  in  the  soft  shadows  of  Oriental  hareems,  in 
the  gloom  of  Hindoo  caves,  Egyptian  pyramids,  or 
Attic  porches,  sculptured  by  divinest  art,  and  lumi- 
nous with  marbles  of  every  hue;  where  in  the  porticos 
echoing  to  Roman  stoicism,  or  the  baths  floating  on 
Roman  license;  where  in  the  saloons  of  French  so- 
ciety, or  by  the  hearths  of  good  old  England;  where, 
alajs!  in  the  free  States  of  America,  whether  North 
or  South, — has  a  system  of  law  prevailed  that  women 
could  think  of,  without  blasphemy,  as  sitting  in  the 
bosom  of  God,  and  so  entitled  to  the  reverence  of 
man? 

We  outgrow  all  things.  Always  the  new  patch 
breaks  the  fabric  of  the  old  garment;  always  the 
new  wine  shatters  the  well-dried  leathern  pouch 
which  held  the  vintage  of  our  ancestors.  But  most 
of  all  do  we  outgrow,  have  we  outgrown,  our  laws. 
They  fall  back,  dead  letters,  into  the  abyss  of  that 
past  from  which  we  have  emerged.  We  put  new 
laws  upon  the  statute-book,  and  do  not  pause  to  wipe 
out  the  old;  finding  our  protection  in  the  public  feel- 


THE    ORIENTAL   ESTIMATE.  267 

ing  and  the  public  progress,  if  not  in  the  traditions  of 
the  elders. 

This,  and  this  only,  saves  old  systems  from  violent 
demolition.  Were  the  State  of  Connecticut  at  this 
moment  to  attempt  to  put  in  force  such  of  the  blue- 
laws  as  are  technically  unrepealed,  she  would  be  met 
by  the  open  rebellion  of  her  highest  officer;  and  the 
chief -justice  who  should  attempt  to  fine  a  bishop  for 
kissing  his  wife  on  Sunday  might  shake  hands  cor- 
dially with  the  chief -justice  who  once  ruled  that  a 
man  might  beat  his  wife  with  a  stick  no  bigger  than 
his  thumb! 

The  laws  which  relate  to  woman  are  based,  for  the 
most  part,  on  a  very  old  and  a  very  Oriental  estimate 
of  her  nature,  her  powers,  and  her  divinely  ordained 
position.  We  shall  see  this,  if  we  follow  the  course 
of  legal  enactments  or  religious  prohibitions  from  the 
beginning. "  When  the  subject  of  Woman's  Civil 
Rights  first  came  to  be  considered,  it  was  customary 
CO  quote  from  the  scholars  one  of  the  sayings  of 
Vishnu  Sarma:  ''Every  book  of  knowledge  which  is 
known  to  Oosana  or  to  Vreehaspatee  is  by  nature  im- 
planted in  the  understandings  of  women." 

Nobody  asked  what  sort  of  knowledge  was  known 
to  these  two  deities;  but  most  readers  took  it  for 
granted  that  it  was  divine :  and  ordinary  people  asked 
why,  if  society  began  with  this  reverent  faith,  we  had 
nothing  better  now  than  the  practical  scepticism  of 
priest  and  lawyer.  When  the  names  of  these  two 
deities  were  translated  into  Venus  and  Mercury  (that 


268  THE    COURT. 

is,  into  love  and  cunning),  the  announcement  seemed 
more  in  keeping  with  the  subsequent  revelations  of 
Vishnu  Sarma: — 

"Women,  at  all  times,"  he  says,  "have  been  inconstant,  even 
among  the  Celestials." 

"Woman's  virtue  is  founded  upon  a  modest  countenance, 
precise  behavior,  rectitude,  and  a  deficiency  of  suitors." 

"In  infancy,  the  father  should  guard  her;  in  youth,  her  hus- 
band; in  old  age,  her  children:  for  at  no  time  is  a  woman  fit  to  be 
trusted  with  liberty." 

"Infidehty,  violence,  deceit,  envy,  extreme  avarice,  a  total 
want  of  good  qualities,  with  impurity,  are  the  innate  faults  of 
womankind." 

These  extracts  will  throw  some  light,  perhaps, 
upon  the  knowledge  of  Oosana  and  Vreehaspatee, 
and  will  save  modern  women  from  any  very  strong 
desire  to  restore  the  ''good  old  rule."  After  such  a 
commentary  on  this  seeming  compliment,  we  shall 
not  think  it  strange,  that,  in  a  country  where  dialect 
is  the  exponent  of  condition,  the  most  ancient  drama 
represents  the  Hindoo  wife  as  addressing  hel*  lord 
and  master  in  the  dialect  of  a  slave. 

"It  is  proper,"  says  an  ancient  Hindoo  scripture, 
''for  every  woman,  after  her  husband's  death,  to  burn 
herself  in  the  fire  with  his  corpse."  I  quote  this  say- 
ing here  only  to  advert  to  the  power  of  public  opin- 
ion, which  has  been  strong  enough  for  ages  to 
compel  this  sacrifice.  But  for  it,  many  a  woman, 
who  had  been  burnt  during  her  whole  conjugal  life  in 
the  fires  of  tyranny,  self-will,  and  arrogant  dominion, 
might  have  hailed  with  joy  the  hour  of  her  release. 


THE    ORIENTAL   ESTIMATE.  269 

Under  it,  such  a  woman  went  calmly  to  the  new 
martyrdom. 

An  ancient  Chinese  writer  tells  us,  that  the  newly 
married  woman  should  be  but  an  echo  in  the  house. 
Her  husband  may  strike  her,  starve  her,  nay,  even  let 
her  out!  Such  was  the  spirit  of  most  Oriental  cus- 
tom and  law.  It  has  crossed  the  Ural;  so  that  Kohl, 
the  German  traveller,  tells  us  that  a  Turk  blushes 
and  apologizes  when  he  mentions  his  wife,  as  if  he 
had  been  guilty  of  a  needless  impertinence.  The 
same  thing  is  reported  of  one  of  the  Sclavic  tribes, 
among  whom  it  may  have  been  borrowed  from  their 
Ottoman  conquerors. 

In  the  ''London  Quarterly"  for  October,  1860,  we 
are  told  that  the  convent  of  Nuestra  Senhora  da 
Ajuda  in  Rio  was  long  employed  for  the  purpose  of 
locking  up  ladies  whose  husbands  were  en  their 
travels.  This  has  been  forbidden  by  the  present 
emperor. 

There  were,  however,  singular  exceptions  to  the 
prevailing  estimate.  In  the  Island  of  Coelebes, 
where  the  government  is  republican  in  form,  the 
president,  and  four  out  of  six  councillors,  are  not  un- 
frequently  women.  In  the  diary  of  the  Marquess  of 
Hastings,  we  are  told,  that  among  the  Garrows,  a 
populous  and  independent  clan  in  the  hill  country  in 
the  north-east  of  India,  all  property  and  authority 
descend  in  the  female  line.  On  the  death  of  the 
mother,  the  bulk  of  the  possessions  goes  to  the  favor- 
ite daughter,  so  designated,  without  regard  to  primo- 


270  THE    COURT. 

geniture  in  her  lifetime.  The  widower  has  a  stipend 
settled  on  him  at  the  time  of  marriage,  and  a  moder- 
ate portion  is  given  to  each  daughter.  The  sons  are 
expected  to  support  themselves.  A  woman,  called 
Muhar,  is  the  chief  of  each  clan.  Her  husband  is 
called  Muharree,  and  has  a  representative  authority^ 
but  no  right  to  her  property.  Should  he  incline  to 
squander  it,  the  clan  will  interfere  in  her  behalf. 
When  the  Duke  of  Wellington  fought  the  battle  of 
Assaye,  in  1803,  against  the  Mahrattas,  a  woman,  the 
Begum  of  Lumroom,  belonging  to  the  military  tribe 
of  Nairs,  fought  against  him  at  the  head  of  her  cav- 
alry. In  this  tribe  the  succession  follows,  according 
to  the  duke's  report,  the  female  line.  This  was  on 
the  coast  of  Malabar,  south  of  Bombay,  and  in  what 
we  should  call  the  south-western  part  of  the  Deccan. 
In  spite  of  the  difference  in  orthography,  and  the 
statement  about  the  north-east,  I  think  these  stories 
may  refer  to  the  same  clan.  An  orthography  so  vari- 
ously rendered  as  the  East  Indian  is  a  blind  guide. 

Quite  evident  is  it  that  the  proverbs  of  more 
western  and  later-born  nations  grew  out  of  the  esti- 
mate of  Vishnu  Sarma  and  his  compeers.  Look  at 
them : — 

"A  rich  man  is  never  ugly  in  the  eyes  of  a  girl." 
"A  beautiful  woman,  smiling,  tells  of  a  purse  gaping." 
"Every  woman  would  rather  be  handsome  than  good." 
"A  house  full  of  daughters  is  a  cellar  full  of  sour  beer." 
"Three  daughters  and  the  mother  are  four  devils  for  the 
father." 


THE    ORIENTAL    ESTIMATE.  27X 

"A  man  of  straw  is  worth  a  woman  of  gold." 

"A  rich  wife  is  a  source  of  a  quarrel." 

"  'Tis  a  poor  roost  where  the  hen  crows." 

"A  happy  couple  is  a  husband  deaf  and  a  wife  blind." 

It  is  quite  evident,  I  think,  that  men  made  these 
proverbs;  and  somewhat  mortifying,  not  to  women 
only,  but  to  our  common  humanity,  that  they  should 
'have  the  run  of  society  and  the  newspapers,  in  an 
age  which  has  given  birth  to  Florence  Nightingale, 
Mary  Patton,  and  Dorothea  Dix, — women  who  have 
been  born  only  to  remind  us  that  their  counterparts 
appeared  a  thousand  years  ago. 

Aristophanes  and  Juvenal,  Boileau  and  Churchill, 
turn  these  slanderous  proverbs  into  verse,  if  not 
into  poetry;  and,  in  examining  the  laws  of  more 
modern  times,  we  shall  constantly  trace  the  effect  of 
the  old  Oriental  estimate.  In  all  such  examinations, 
we  have  four  points  to  consider: — 

1st,  That  estimate  of  woman  on  which  her  civil 
position  is  founded,  and  those  rights  of  property 
which  are  granted  or  refused  to  her  accordingly. 

2d,  Such  laws  as  relate  to  marriage  and  divorce. 

3d,  Such  laws  or  customs  as  keep  woman  out  of 
office,  off  the  jury,  and  refuse  her  all  authorized  legit- 
imate interference  in  public  affairs. 

4th,  Her  right  of  suffrage. 

Of  these  points,  the  discussion  of  such  laws  as  re- 
late to  marriage  and  divorce  is  alone  to  be  restricted 
by  any  considerations  of  prudence.  It  has  never 
seemed  to  me  a  wise  thing  to  open  needlessly  this 


272  THE    COURT. 

discussion;  and  the  opening  of  it  by  women  is  need- 
less, while  they  are  in  no  position  to  discuss  it  equally 
with  men.  In  the  marriage  relation,  whatever  is  the 
certain  loss  and  misery  of  one  sex  is  also  the  certain 
loss  and  misery  of  the  other.  Whatever  inequality  and 
injustice  appertains  to  it  will  be  best  removed  when 
the  two  sexes  can  consider  it  together,  like  two  equal 
and  competent  powers.*  I  shall  advert  to  the  laws 
of  marriage  and  divorce,  only  to  point  out  mistakes 
or  bad  results  not  generally  perceived,  and  make  no 
attempt  to  treat  them  at  length. 

When  we  consider  what  sort  of  public  opinion  has 
educated  woman,  what  estimate  has  lain  at  the  bottom 
of  all  the  laws  passed  concerning  her,  it  does  not 
seem  strange,  that,  after  living  for  ages  in  a  false  posi- 
tion, she  should  somewhat  approximate  to  this  esti- 
mate; so  that  we  say  with  pain  of  the  mass  of  women, 
that  they  themselves  need  a  change  quite  as  much  as 
their  circumstances.  It  is  common,  in  treating  of 
this  subject,  to  dwell  on  the  position  of  woman  under 
the  Roman  law;  but  very  little  is  gained  by  it.  We 
can  see  by  the  literature  of  the  nation  what  estimate 
was  put  upon  woman,  and  what  share  she  took  in  the 
degradation  of  society;  but  how  far  this  was  the  con- 
sequence of  bad  law,  what  changes  were  wrought  from 
the  time  of  Justinian,  not  merely  in  law,  but  in  moral 
soundness  under  the  law,  it  is  not  easy  to  tell  in  a 
country  which  had  neither  printing-presses  nor  news- 

♦  Of  course,  I  do  not  mean  to  be  understood  here  as  objecting  to  any  tem- 
perate and  earnest  attempt  by  men  or  women  to  amend  law. 


THE   ORIENTAL   ESTIMATE.  273 

papers.  We  have  only  the  judgment  of  a  few  men, 
themselves  law-makers,  to  rely  upon;  and  their  opin- 
ions had  a  very  limited  circulation  in  their  lifetime,  and 
could  not  be  tested  by  any  cotemporaneous  verdict. 
It  is  in  vain  that  we  listen  to  testimony  when  no  com- 
petent witnesses  appear  on  the  ''other  side."  Women, 
however,  ought  always  to  remember  to  whom  they 
owe  the  changes  made  in  Justinian's  time.  The  life 
of  Theodora  is  yet  to  be  written.  The  scandalous 
anecdotes  of  a  secret  history  must  some  day  be  bal- 
anced by  the  public  testimony  of  Procopius,  and  some 
good.be  told  of  the  woman  whose  first  thought,  when 
raised  to  empire,  was  for  the  companions  of  her  pre- 
vious infamy,  and  whose  influence  over  her  husband 
never  faltered,  and  is  visible  in  every  modification  of 
the  laws  relating  to  her  sex.  If  we  could  realize  the 
corruptness  of  the  higher  classes  of  society,  we  should 
not  wonder  at  the  emperor  who  chose  his  wife  from 
the  streets;  and  the  fact  itself  tells  a  story  which  he 
who  heeds  need  not  misunderstand.* 


*  It  will  easily  be  conjectured  that  I  do  not  feel  competent  to  treat  the  great 
subject  of  Roman  legislation  for  women,  in  the  noble  and  extended  manner 
which  is  at  once,  as  it  seems  to  me,  necessary  and  possible.  Perhaps  I  shall 
never  become  so. 

It  seems  to  me  proper,  however,  that  I  should  indicate  my  dissatisfaction 
with  existing  methods  in  the  clearest  manner,  and  drop  a  few  hints,  as  I  do  in 
the  text,  as  to  the  diflBculties  in  the  way. 

Roman  sepulchral  inscriptions,  of  the  era  generally  considered  the  most 
licentious,  bear  witness  in  the  fullest  manner  to  the  existence  of  chastity  and 
domestic  virtue.  A  sepulchral  inscription,  it  may  be  argued,  is  a  poor  witness 
to  facts.  I  would  suggest  in  reply,  that  a  nation  ceases  to  commemorate  the 
virtue  which  has  ceased  to  exist,  or  which  it  has,  through  a  general  depravity 
of  manners,  ceased  to  respect. 

22 


274  THE    COURT. 

The  laws  which  most  directly  affect  us  here  in 
America  are  the  laws  of  France  and  England:  the" 
laws  of  France,  because  they  modify  the  code  of 
Canada,  Florida,  and  Louisiana;  the  laws  of  Eng- 
land, because  in  her  common  law,  recognized  all  over 
the  country  by  all  the  States,  we  find  the  basis  of  all 
that  is  objectionable  in  our  legislation. 

First,  then,  let  us  consider  the  estimate  on  which 
the  French  law  is  based,  and  then  its  property-laws. 
Civil  position  and  the  right  of  franchise  can  be  dis- 
posed of  in  a  few  w^ords  the  world  over.  ''There  is 
one  thing  which  is  not  French,"  said  Bonaparte,  as  he 
closed  a  cabinet  council,  while  preparing  his  famous 
Code;  ''and  that  is,  a  woman  who  can  do  as  she 
pleases." 

The  estimate  of  woman  in  France  is  of  a  double 
character. 

It  is  low,  because  marriage  among  the  upper  classes 
is,  at  the  best,  only  a  well-made  bargain. 

It  is  high,  because  women  have  been  encouraged  to 
enter  trade,  both  by  law,  which  protects  them  in  their 
capacity  as  merchants,  and  by  the  military  character 
of  the  nation,  which  prevents  men  from  entering  busi- 
ness. 

It  is  low,  because  throughout  the  provinces  there 
are  remnants  of  old  feudal  custom,  which  keep  her 
in  the  position  of  a  slave.  The  peasant's  wife  rarely 
sits  at  table:  she  crouches  in  the  chimney-corner, 
eating  from  the  stew-pan;  while  her  husband  sits 
at  the  table  in  state  before  his  porringer.     Yet,  in 


THE    FRENCH   LAW.  275 

another  respect,  this  very  woman  helps  to  raise  the 
estimate  of  her  sex;  for  she  works  with  her  husband 
in  the  field,  while  a  wealthier  wife  is  often  only  a 
burden.  Like  him,  she  is  exposed  to  all  the  changes 
of  the  weather.  Pregnancy  does  not  save  her  from 
the  plough  or  the  vintage.  While  her  husband  rests 
at  noon,  she  must  nurse  her  babe  or  prepare  his  meal. 

In  most  countries,  it  is  desirable  to  turn  the 
thoughts  of  women  away  from  love,  and  give  them 
some  healthier  occupation.  In  France,  it  would  be 
well  to  stimulate  the  affections,  because  covetous- 
ness,  a  desire  of  worldly  position,  or  splendid  wealth, 
is  the  main  motive  to  a  marriage.  With  us,  love 
constitutes  the  whole  life  of  many  a  woman;  while 
it  may  be  only  an  episode  in  that  of  her  husband. 

In  France,  even  woman  seldom  loves^  but  marries 
to  establish  herself  in  life.  It  is  against  this  greed 
that  she  needs  to  be  cautioned,  not  against  that 
emotion  and  sentiment  which  God  meant  should  be 
both  a  safeguard  and  a  blessing.  Love  must  rescue 
woman  from  vanity,  self-indulgence,  and  empty  show. 
Only  through  its  divine  power  will  she  come  to  per- 
ceive the  true  nature  of  that  shameful  bargain,  by 
which  she  surrenders  what  is  most  precious  to  ap- 
pease the  thirst  of  society.  If  we  would  save  and 
serve  humanity  here,  we  must  let  natural  suscepti- 
bilities have  their  full  play. 

At  the  same  time,  the  business  freedom  which 
women  enjoy  in  France  has  led  many  women  to 
reflect  thoroughly  and  act  vigorously.     The  reading 


276  THE    COURT. 

world  is  deluged  with  books  relating  to  woman, — - 
her  education,  her  labor,  and  her  civil  rights.  Out 
of  this  condition  of  things  spring  a  class  who  long 
to  share  the  sorrow  and  responsibility  as  well  as 
the  joy  of  liberty.  They  will  not  accept  the  tender- 
ness and  pity  of  such  men  as  Michelet,  who  veil 
a  profound  sensualism  with  the  graces  of  an  affected 
sentimentality.  Sometimes,  like  George  Sand,  these 
women  break  loose  from  social  ties,  test  the  world 
for  themselves,  and,  when  they  have  squeezed  the 
orange  which  looked  so  tempting,  show  to  others 
the  empty,  bitter  rind,  and  return  gladly  to  the  daily 
bread  of  Divine  Ordinance.  Once,  in  Rosa  Bonheur, 
fresh  and  wise,  energetic  and  vigorous,  the  French 
woman  has  challenged  the  attention  of  the  civilized 
world.  With  no  womanish  weaknesses,  frank,  loyal, 
and  endowed  with  a  serious  and  reflective  nature, 
this  artist  has  asked  no  leave  to  be  of  church  or 
society.  '^1  have  no  patience,"  she  once  said,  ''with 
women  who  ask  permission  to  think.  Let  women 
establish  their  claims  by  great  and  good  works,  and 
not  by  conventions."  She  took  the  whole  world  in 
her  two  brave .  woman's  hands,  found  her  inheri- 
tance, and  resolved  to  enjoy  it. 

It  is  in  France,  too,  that  Clara  Demars  thinks 
out  all  the  psychological  relations  of  love  and  mar- 
riage, and  reminds  us  of  Mrs.  John  Stuart  Mill,  by 
saying  that  ^' truth  will  never  reign  over  the  world, 
nor  between  the  sexes,  until,  by  being  set  free, 
woman  loses  all  temptation  to  dissimulate." 


THE   FRENCH   LAW.  277 

There,  too,  Flora  Tristan  provokes  a  smile  by 
echoing  in  prose  the  rhythmic  platitudes  of  Mr. 
Coventry  Patmore,  and  claiming,  not  equality,  but 
sovereignty  and  autocracy,  for  woman. 

There  Pauline  Roland  boldly  claims  that  marriage 
shall  never  be  tolerated,  till  man  as  well  as  woman 
is  compelled  to  keep  the  law  of  chastity. 

There  Madame  Moniot  claims  her  civil  rights  from 
the  lecturer's  desk;  and  D^sir^  Gay,  interesting  her- 
self practically  in  the  question  of  woman's  labor,  rules 
the  women  of  the  national  workshops. 

When  both  sides  of  this  picture  are  studied;  when 
we  look  back,  on  the  one  hand,  to  Marie  Antoinette 
and  Madame  Recamier,  and,  on  the  other,  to  Madame 
Roland,  Madame  de  Stael,  and  Marie  de  Lamou- 
rous, — it  is  not  strange  that  the  fanciful  protector- 
ship of  such  men  as  Michelet  should  be  balanced  by 
a  claim,  made  not  only  by  Talleyrand,  but  Condorcet, 
for  woman's  full  equality  as  a  laborer  and  a  citi- 
zen. And  this  varying  and  inconsistent  estimate  of 
woman,  made  evident  in  the  social,  industrial,  and 
literary  spheres  of  France,  is  strangely  sustained  by 
her  legal  enactments.  The  ''Code  Napoleon"  is 
founded  on  the  Roman,  and  is  very  similar  to  the 
English  common  law,  so  far  as  it  concerns  woman: 
but  beside  this  law,^  which  is  called,  in  reference  to 
married  women,  the  dotal,  there  is  another,  called  the 
communal;  and,  before  marriage,  parties  may  choose 
between  these  two.  That  contract  once  signed,  they 
must  abide  by  their  choice  ever  after.     If  the  dotal 


278  THE    COURT. 

law  is  founded  on  Roman  law  and  usage,  and  so 
came  naturally  enough  to  prevail  in  Southern  France 
until  the  time  of  the  Revolution;  so  the  communal 
law  prevailed  at  the  North,  and  is  founded  on  the 
German  habits  and  laws,  beneath  which  always  lay 
the  idea,  that,  if  not  technically  a  laborer,  the  wife, 
by  care  and  industry, — the  thrift  of  the  housewife, 
— contributed  to  the  acquisition  of  property. 

It  is  very  singular  that  all  the  nations  of  Conti- 
nental Europe,  with  the  exception  of  Spain,  have 
rejected  the  dotal  or  Roman  law.  The  objection  to 
it  seems  to  have  arisen  out  of  the  fact,  that  it  per- 
mits the  wife's  property  to  be  settled  solely  on  her- 
self, and  to  be  so  secured  against  her  husband's 
debts.  In  the  community  of  estates,  the  property 
of  each  is  liable  for  the  debts  of  either.  It  was  on 
this  account,  probably,  that,  while  the  "Code  Napo- 
leon" elucidated  and  defined  the  dotal  system,  it 
expressly  provided  for  the  right  of  choice  in  the 
parties,  and  declared,  that,  if  no  choice  were  made, 
they  should  be  supposed  to  be  living  under  the 
German  or  communal  law. 

The  Dutch  law  is  essentially  the  same.  When  the 
"Code  Napoleon"  came  into  force,  there  were  not 
wanting  French  legislators  to  say,  that  woman  was 
now  better  protected  than  ever  before.  But  this  legal 
protection  is  of  a  kind  due  only  to  minors  and  luna- 
tics. This  law,  like  our  own,  suspects,  not  only  the 
intelligence  of  woman,  but  her  integrity;  and  aims 
not  to  protect  her,  but  man,  against  her  weakness  or 


THE   FRENCH   LAW.  279 

iraud.  In  marriage,  the  husband  administers  for  both, 
not  only  the  common  property,  but  her  personal  pos- 
sessions. That  is  to  say,  by  pretending  to  protect  itf 
the  law  takes  away  from  woman  her  personal  prop- 
erty. It  often  happens,  that  a  woman  who  has 
brought  her  husband  a  large  property  is  compelled  to 
shift  in  narrow  ways,  like  a  beggar  or  a  miser,  on 
account  of  his  parsimony  or  personal  ill-will. 

The  wife  cannot  give  away  the  smallest  article,  not 
even  such  as  have  been  gifts  to  her:  and  the  934th 
article  of  the  ''Code  Napoleon"  declares,  ''that  the 
wife  may  not  accept  a  gift  without  the  consent  of  her 
husband;  or,  if  he  should  refuse,  without  the  appro- 
bation of  a  magistrate."  She  cannot  pledge  their 
common  property,  even  though  it  were  to  set  her  hus- 
band free  when  imprisoned  for  debt;  nor,  in  the  event 
of  his  absence,  to  secure  necessaries  for  his  children, 
without  the  same  magisterial  authority.  Commonly, 
this  authority  would  be  readily  obtained;  but  it  is  easy 
to  see  that  many  cases  might  arise,  when,  from  defeated 
purposes,  personal  enmity,  or  the  influence  of  the 
husband  against  her,  it  would  be  all  but  impossible. 

Even  in  case  of  bankruptcy,  French  legislators  tell 
us,  the  rights  of  the  wife  are  protected.  But  this 
very  protection  is  insulting;  for  it  treats  the  wife  as 
if  she  must  of  necessity  be  either  an  inert  instrument 
in  the  hands  of  her  husband,  or  a  dupe,  whose  weak- 
ness he  might  readily  abuse.  Through  such  protec- 
tion, the  dishonest  merchant  finds  it  easy  to  defraud 
his  creditors. 


280  THE    COURT. 

Now,  this  ''Code  Napoleon"  says  that  ''the  hus- 
band owes  protection  to  his  wife;  and  the  wife,  on 
her  side,  owes  obedience  to  her  husband:"  but  it 
goes  on  to  secure  the  obedience  by  giving  an  unlim- 
ited right  to  the  person  of  the  wife,  without  in  any 
way  providing  the  promised  protection. 

"The  wife  must  live  with  her  husband,  and  follow  him  wherever 
he  sees  fit  to  go.  As  for  him,  he  must  receive  her,  and  furnish 
her  with  necessaries  according  to  her  wealth  and  rank." 

Now,  this  clause  actually  constrains  no  one  but  the 
wife;  for  what  would  be  the  condition  of  a  woman 
who  followed  her  husband  against  his  will,  and  re- 
mained under  his  roof  when  he  was  determined  that 
she  should  quit  it?  Under  such  circumstances,  his 
recognition  of  her  wealth  and  rank  would  be  very  apt 
to  fall  to  the  level  of  his  own  irritation. 

The  French  code  will  interfere  to  protect  a  wife 
against  the  total  loss  of  her  property,  if  she  can 
prove  some  loss  already  experienced,  either  from  the 
improvidence  or  the  bad  conduct  of  her  husband; 
but  it  keeps  her  powerless  to  protect  herself  against 
that  first  loss.  Having  thus,  and  for  such  reasons, 
obtained  a  separate  jurisdiction  over  her  property, 
she  cannot  alienate,  mortgage,  or  acquire  a  title  to 
new  property,  without  her  unworthy  husband's  con- 
sent in  person  or  on  paper.  The  guardianship  of  the 
children  is  left  to  the  survivor  of  the  marriage;  but 
the  mother's  right  in  such  case  may  be  restrained  by 
the  father's  and  husband's  will.     He  can  appoint  a 


THE    FRENCH   LAW.  281 

trustee  to  be  associated  with  her.  As  a  business 
woman,  even  if  separated  in  estate,  the  wife  cannot 
make  or  dissolve  a  contract  without  the  consent  of 
her  husband. 

As  a  ''public  merchant"  under  the  communal  sys- 
tem,— that  is,  pledged  in  her  own  name, — she  is  free 
from  this  restraint.  As  a  citizen  of  the  French  repub- 
lic, she  in  that  case  supports,  conjointly  with  her  hus- 
band, all  State  charges.  She  is  taxed  as  much  as  he; 
for  their  common  income  is  diminished  as  much  for 
one  as  for  the  other.  She  has  no  suffrage ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  she  is  not  liable  for  military  service.  She 
has  no  rights;  a  state  of  things,  which,  if  it  be  excusa- 
ble when  she  is  absorbed  into  her  husband's  person- 
ality, is  only  absurd  when  she  fulfils  all  the  functions 
of  a  citizen.  Well  may  Legouv6  exclaim,  ''that,  if  the 
household  be  woman's  own  sphere,  she  ought  to  be 
queen  in  it;  and  her  own  faculties  should  secure  her 
this  supremacy.  Her  opponents  should  be  forced,  on 
their  own  principles,  to  emancipate  her  as  daughter, 
wife,  and  mother."  The  woman  who  owns  an  estate 
is,  under  this  law,  sole  mistress  of  it.  She  signs  the 
leases  and  m^akes  the  bargains.  She  pays  the  State 
tax,  an  additional  rate  to  her  own  department,  a  town 
tax,  and  a  tax  on  roads.  It  is  with  her  that  the  local 
or  general  government  treat,  if  they  cut  through  her 
estate  for  public  ends.  Against  them,  if  wronged,  she 
herself  carries  suit.  By  her  influence  as  a  proprietor, 
she  controls  many  votes;  yet  she  is  not  permitted  to 
cast  one.     She  cannot  directly  control  the  position  of 


282  THE    COURT.. 

the  very  representative  who  imposes  her  taxes.  She 
is  in  the  same  position  with  regard  to  all  the  higher 
officers,  who  decide  such  questions  as  affect  the  value 
of  her  estate.  As  citizen,  therefore,  under  the  com- 
munal law,  her  position  is  uncertain  and  contradic- 
tory. 

So  much  for  the  estimate  of  woman  in  Franca; 
and  so  much  for  the  rights  of  property,  of  marriage, 
:and  of  suffrage,  founded  upon  that  estimate.  What 
is  her  civil  position?  what  office  or  employment  is 
open  to  her?  Women  are  better  off  in  France,  it  is 
again  said,  than  ever  before.  As  merchants,  fair 
chances,  barred  by  some  contradictions  and  anoma- 
lies, await  them;  but  whoever  ponders  their  condition 
cannot  fail  to  see,  that  here,  as  elsewhere,  the  protec- 
tion afforded  by  the  law  is  merely  the  vigilance  of  a 
police  officer,  which  protects  the  criminal,  not  for  her 
own  sake,  but  for  that  of  society,  which  her  very  ex- 
istence is  supposed  to  endanger. 

The  most  desirable  amelioration  of  her  lot  will 
be  secured  by  the  admission  of  her  free  personality. 
When  society  strikes  out  from  the  statute-book  all 
distinctions  of  sex,  and  admits  that  she  is  a  person 
capable  of  thinking  and  acting  for  herself,  she  will 
lay  the  foundation  of  a  new  civilization. 

In  France,  we  are  told,  women  sometimes  fill  pub- 
lic functions.  They  may  be  postmistresses,  and  in- 
spectors of  schools;  or  they  may  take  charge  of  the 
bureaus  of  wood  or  tobacco.  They  may  also  be 
inspectors  of  public  asylums, — a  right  and  a  duty 


THE   FRENCH   LAW.  283 

of  very  great  importance.  As  a  public  functionary, 
woman  fills  few  and  inferior  posts;  but  in  these  she 
exercises  and  possesses  all  the  rights  of  k  man,  with 
one  exception, — that  exception,  alas!  the  very  key- 
stone on  which  all  human  success  must  rest:  I  mean, 
the  right  of  promotion.  Do  not  smile,  prompted  by 
an  unworthy  apprehension  of  my  meaning.  It  is  not 
because  women  are  more  greedy  or  more  ambitious 
than  men  that  I  call  the  right  to  promotion  the 
keystone  of  their  success.  Only  small  and  narrow 
natures  can  be  content  in  a  treadmill.  If  constant 
motion  will  not  carry  her  over  the  top  of  the  wheel, 
instinct  prompts  the  reasoning  creature  to  abate  her 
efforts.  No  man  of  his  own  free  will  turns  into  a 
road  which  abuts  upon  a  stone  wall.  The  State 
turnpike  is  better,  where  the  wayfarer  may  die  by 
a  sunstroke,  or  perish  of  a  frost;  where  endless  miles 
stretch  over  uncultivated  wastes:  better;  for  here,  at 
least,  the  way  is  open,  the  sky  overhead. 

Before  proceeding  to  speak  of  the  English  common 
law,  it  will  perhaps  be  well  to  turn  from  the  ''Code 
Napoleon"  to  the  law  of  Louisiana,  in  which  the  influ- 
ence of  the  two  forms  of  French  law  still  shows  itself. 
I  do  not  consider  the  laws  of  Canada,  because  they 
are  compHcated,  not  only  by  the  English  common 
law,  but  by  Canadian  statutes,  somewhat  in  the 
spirit  of  our  own  recent  enactments,  and  by  curious 
archaeological  remains  of  feudal  law, — laws  which 
would  sound  like  the  decrees  of  Haroun  al  Raschid, 
were  I  to  tax  your  soberness  by  setting  them  before 


284  THE    COURT. 

you.  They  are,  let  us  be  thankful,  of  small  practical 
importance,  as  is  the  great  body  of  all  law.* 

In  Louisiana,  according  to  the  civil  code  of  1824, 
the  partnership  of  gains  arising  during  coverture 
exists  by  law  in  every  marriage,  without  express 
stipulation  to  the  contrary.  But  the  parties  may 
regulate  their  married  obligations  as  they  please, 
provided  they  do  nothing  immoral.  The  wife's  prop- 
erty is  ''dotal."  What  she  brings,  her  paraphernalia, 
is  *'extra-dotal."  The  dowry  belongs  to  the  husband 
during  marriage;  and  he  has  the  administration  of 
the  partnership,  and  may  alienate  his  revenue,  with- 
out his  wife's  consent:  but  he  cannot  convey  the 
common  estate.  If,  before  marriage,  he  should  stipu- 
late that  there  should  be  no  partnership,  his  wife 
preserves  the  entire  control  of  her  own  property. 
Her  heirs  take  her  separate  estate;  even  money  re- 
ceived by  her  husband  on  her  account.  If  there  be 
no  agreement  as  to  the  expenses,  the  wife  contributes 
one-half  of  her  income.  Her  landed  estate,  whether 
dotal  or  not,  is  not  affected  by  his  debts.  She  is  a 
privileged  creditor,  and  has  the  first  mortgage  on 
his  property. 

If  the  parties  have  agreed  to  the  ''partnership  of 
gains,"  the  common  property  is  Uable  for  the  debts 


*  The  great  body  of  all  law  is  of  small  practical  importance,  because,  in 
spite  of  the  five  points  of  Calvinism  and  the  long  faces  of  many  bearded  phi- 
losophers, the  majority  of  mankind  not  only  obey  the  law,  but  transcend  it, — do 
better  than  it  requires.  It  is  only  the  few  who  transgress;  and  thus  many 
absurdities  are  never  or  very  rarely  dragged  into  the  light  of  a  "decision." 


THE   FRENCH   LAW.  285 

of  either.  On  the  death  of  either  party,  one-half  of 
the  property  goes  to  the  survivor;  the  other,  to  the 
heirs  of  the  dead  partner. 

You  will  perceive  that  this  law  seems  a  loose 
mixture  of  the  Roman  or  dotal  system  with  the 
German  communal  law,  based  on  the  partnership 
of  gains;  but  the  common  law  takes  it  for  granted 
that  the  partnership  exists,  where  there  is  no  express 
stipulation  to  the  contrary.  As  a  public  trader,  the 
wife  may  bind  herself  in  whatever  relates  to  her 
business,  without  her  husband's  consent — may  even 
make  a  will;  and  reference  is  made  to  the  ''Code 
Napoleon,"  in  the  same  way,  to  all  appearance,  that 
we  refer  to  the  common  law  of  England. 

The  estimate  of  woman  upon  which  the  "Code 
Napoleon"  is  founded  has  the  same  effect  upon  her 
earnings  as  the  English  common  law.  As,  in  mar- 
riage, the  policy  has  been  to  keep  her  subordinate  and 
inferior;  to  give  her  no  privileges  which  should  lead 
to  independence:  so,  in  business,  the  effect  of  the 
law  is  to  keep  the  price  of  her  work  down,  and 
give  her  as  few  escapes  from  household  drudgery 
as  may  be;  to  offer  her,  in  fact,  no  temptation  to 
escape. 

As  polishers,  burnishers,  and  copper- workers ;  as 
glove-makers,  enamellers,  and  wire-drawers;  as  flax- 
beaters  and  soakers;  as  spinners,  gauze-workers,  and 
winders;  as  basket-makers,  and  temperers  of  steel; 
as  knife-handlers,  embroiderers,  and  wheel-turners;  as 
velvet-makers,  cockle-gatherers,  and  ivory- workers;  as 


286  THE    COURT. 

packers,  knitters,  satin-makers,  and  folders;  as  picture- 
colorers,  and  workers  in  wood;  as  casters,  weighers, 
and  varnishers;  as  shoe-makers,  strap-makers,  lace- 
makers,  and  cocoon-winders, — the  French  employ 
many  women;  and  the  estimate  of  the  law  is  prac- 
tically indicated,  there  as  well  as  here,  in  the  price 
of  the  labor  done. 

The  highest  wages  marked  upon  my  list  are  those 
paid  to  the  workers  in  a  porcelain  factory,  who  re- 
ceived one  franc  and  fifty  centimes  a  day,  or  thirty 
cents.  The  lowest  are  those  paid  to  cockle-gatherers 
and  lace-makers;  that  is,  from  twenty  to  twenty-five 
centimes,  or  from  four  to  five  cents  a  day. 

The  fact  that  the  poor  lace-makers,  who  lose  their 
eyesight  and  their  lives  bending  over  their  bobbins, 
are  paid  the  same  wages  as  the  loitering  girls  who 
pick  up  gay  cockles  on  the  beach,  shows  how  little 
the  price  of  the  labor  depends  on  the  value  of  the 
work  done,  and  tells  the  whole  story  in  a  breath. 
The  wages  of  the  needlewomen  of  Paris  have  been 
diminishing  ever  since  1847,  and,  according  to  the 
''Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,"  now  average  only  from 
twenty  to  twenty-five  cents  a  day. 


THE    ENGLISH    COMMON   LAW.  287 


II. 

THE  ENGLISH  COMMON  LAW. 

"And  we,  perusing  o'er  these  notes, 
May  know  wherefore  we  took  the  sacrament, 
And  keep  our  faiths  firm  and  inviolable." 

King  John. 

IN  approaching  the  subject  of  English  common 
law,  we  come  nearer  to  our  own  special  interests. 
Twenty  years  ago,  I  am  safe,  I  think,  in  presuming 
that  this  law  was  the  basis  of  all  our  legislation  in 
regard  to  woman,  if  we  except  that  in  French  or 
Spanish  territory;  and,  in  criticising  its  provisions,  I 
shall  criticise  all  that  is  objectionable,  whether  in  the 
laws  that  have  been  changed,  or  in  the  laws  that 
remain  to  be  changed,  in  our  own  States. 

If  we  were  to  examine  the  literature  of  England 
with  reference  to  this  subject,  we  should  probably 
find  from  the  beginning  many  protests  against  the 
present  position  of  woman.  It  is  never  safe,  for  in- 
stance, to  assume  what  poets  may  or  may  not  have 
said.  If  Dryden  could  get  so  far  as  to  say  that  there 
is  **no  sex  in  souls,"  one  would  think  the  gentle 
Chaucer  and  heavenly-minded  Daniel  doubtless  dis- 
cerned still  deeper  things;  but  of  lawyers  we  may 
say  with  some  truth,  that  their  early  protests  were  so 
quietly  made  as  scarcely  to  be  recognized,  or  were 


288  THE    COURT. 

made  for  the  most  part  by  unread  and  anonymous 
writers. 

In  the  ''Lawe's  Resolution  of  Woman's  Rights," 
published  in  the  year  of  1632,  there  seems  to  be  a 
distinct  recognition  of  the  true  nature  of  the  law: — 

"The  next  thing  that  I  will  show  you,"  says  the  author,  "is 
this  particularity  of  law.  In  this  consolidation  which  we  call 
wedlock  is  a  locking  together.  It  is  true,  that  man  and  wife  are 
one  person;  but  understand  in  what  manner.  When  a  small 
brooke  or  little  river  incorporateth  with  Rhodanus,  Humber,  or 
the  Thames,  the  poore  rivulet  looseth  her  name;  it  is  carried  and 
recarried  with  the  new  associate;  it  beareth  no  sway;  it  possesseth 
nothing  during  coverture,  A  woman,  as  soon  as  she  is  married, 
is  called  covert;  in  Latine,  nupta, — that  is,  'veiled;'  as  it  were, 
clouded  and  overshadowed:  she  hath  lost  her  streame.  I  may 
more  truly,  farre  away,  say  to  a  married  woman,  Her  new  self 
is  her  superior;  her  companion,  her  master." 

Still  farther:  "Eve,  because  she  had  helped  to  seduce  her 
husband,  had  inflicted  upon  her  a  special  bane.  See  here  the 
reason  of  that  which  I  touched  before, — that  women  have  no 
voice  in  Parliament.  They  make  no  laws,  they  consent  to  none, 
they  abrogate  none.  All  of  them  are  understood  either  married 
or  to  be  married,  and  their  desires  are  to  their  husbands.  I 
know  no  remedy,  that  some  women  can  shift  it  well  enough. 
The  common  la  we  here  shaketh  hand  with  divinity  e." 

In  this  plain  statement  of  the  old  black-letter  book 
lies  the  root  of  the  evil  with  which  we  contend:  "All 
of  them  are  married  or  to  bee  married,  and  their 
desires  are  to  their  husbands."  Woman,  single,  wid- 
owed,  or  pursuing  an  independent  vocation,   never 


THE    ENGLISH    COMMON    LAW.  289 

seems  to  have  entered  the  head  of  the  law,  as  a  pos- 
sible monster,  worth  providing  for.  The  world  of 
that  day  believed  in  the  sea-serpent,  but  not  in  her. 
This  book,  ''The  Lawe's  Resolution  of  the  Rights  of 
Woman,"  was,  so  far  as  I  know,  first  brought  under 
our  notice  by  Mrs.  Bodichon's  quotation,  in  her 
''Brief  Summary  of  the  English  Law."  Then  a  few 
copies  found  their  way  to  this  country,  and  into  the 
hands  of  curious  persons.  People  began  to  wonder 
who  wrote  the  quaint  old  book.  In  pleading  before 
our  own  Legislature  in  the  spring  of  1858,  I  was 
myself  asked  by  the  committee  who  was  its  author; 
and  I  think  it  but  right  to  rescue  from  oblivion  the 
probable  name  of  this  early  friend  to  woman  and 
justice.  It  is  always  difficult  to  trace  an  anonymous 
book,  and,  this  time,  more  difficult  than  usual,  as  it 
was  probably  published  after  its  author's  death. 

Sir  John  Doderidge,  to  whom  my  attention  was  di- 
rected by  an  eminent  antiquarian,  was  an  able  lawyer, 
and  an  industrious  compiler  of  law-books  of  a  special 
kind.  He  was  from  Devonshire,  and  admitted  as  a 
barrister  in  1603.  He  was  successively  appointed 
Solicitor-General,  Judge  of  the  Common  Pleas  and 
of  the  King's  Bench.  Among  the  works  known  to 
be  his,  yet  not  commonly  included  in  the  list  of  his 
works,  are  the  "Lawyer's  Light,"  published  in  1629; 
and  "The  Complete  Parson,"  with  the  laws  relating 
to  advowsons  and  livings,  in  1670, — books  of  the 
same  class,  character,  and  appearance  as  the  "Lawe's 
Resolution." 

23 


290  THE    COURT. 

As  he  died  in  1628,  I  was  at  first  inclined  to  suspect 
the  fairness  of  this  inference:  but  a  further  examina- 
tion showed  that  all  his  publications  were  posthu- 
mous; which  accounts,  perhaps,  for  the  candor  of  their 
covert  satire.  A  few  particulars  of  his  life  and  stand- 
ing may  be  gained  from  the  new  Life  of  Lord  Bacon, 
where  Hepworth  Dixon  says  that  'Hhe  Solicitor- 
Generalship,  vacant  once  more,  is  given,  over  Francis 
Bacon's  head,  to  Sir  John  Doderidge,  Serjeant  of  the 
Coif."  In  1606,  when  Sir  Francis  Gawdy  dies, 
'^Coke  goes  up  to  the  bench;  and  Doderidge,  the 
Solicitor-General,  ought,  by  the  custom  of  the  law. 
to  follow  Coke,  leaving  the  post  of  Solicitor  void: 
but  Cecil  raises  Sir  Henry  Hobart,  his  obscure  Attor- 
ney of  the  Court  of  Wards,  over  both  Doderidge 
and  Bacon's  head,  to  the  high  place  of  Attorney- 
General."  Since  that  day,  Bentham  and  Catharine 
Macaulay,  Mary  Wollstonecraft,  and  John  Stuart 
Mill,  have  made  the  same  complaint;  sustaining  it, 
however,  by  vigorous  argument  for  woman's  full 
emancipation,  and  a  demand  for  the  right  of  suf- 
frage. 

Let  us  look  at  this  English  law.  So  far  as  it 
affects  single  women,  it  is  very  simple. 

A  single  woman  has  the  same  rights  of  property  as 
a  man;  that  is,  she  may  get  and  keep,  or  dispose  of, 
whatever  she  can.  She  has  a  right,  like  man,  to  the 
protection  of  the  law,  and  has  to  pay  the  same  taxes 
to  the  State. 

^^Duly  qualified,"  she  may  vote  on  parish  questions 


THE    ENGLISH    COMMON   LAW.  291 

and  for  parish  officers;  and  ''duly  qualified,"  in  Eng- 
land, means  that  she  shall  have  a  certain  amount  of 
property,  and  so  a  vested  interest  in  the  prosperity 
of  her  parish.  If  her  parents  die  without  a  will,  she 
shares  equally  with  her  brothers  in  the  division  of  the 
personal  property;  but  her  eldest  brother  and  his 
issue,  even  if  female,  will  take  the  real  estate  as  heirs- 
at-law.  If  she  be  an  only  child,  she  inherits  both 
personal  and  real,  and  becomes  immediately  that  most 
pitiable  of  creatures,  an  heiress. 

The  church  and  all  state  offices  are  closed  to  women. 
They  find  some  employment  in  rural  post-offices;  but 
there  is  no  important  office  they  can  hold,  if  we  ex- 
cept that  of  sovereign.  This  is  sometimes  spoken  of 
as  an  inconsistency;  but  if  we  reflect  upon  the  posi- 
tion of  a  constitutional  sovereign,  whose  speeches  are 
the  work  of  her  minister,  and  whose  actions  indicate 
the  average  conscience  of  a  cabinet  council,  we  shall 
find  her  legally  but  very  little  more  independent  than 
other  women  technically  classed  with  minors  and 
idiots. 

There  have  been  a  few  women  governors  of  pris- 
ons, overseers  of  the  poor,  and  parish  clerks;  but 
public  opinion  still  effectually  bars  most  women  from 
seeking  or  accepting  office. 

The  office  of  Grand  Chamberlain  was  filled  by  two 
women  in  1822.  That  of  Clerk  of  the  Crown,  in 
the  Court  of  Queen's  Bench,  has  been  granted  to  a 
female;  and,  in  a  certain  parish  of  Norfolk,  a  woman 
was  recently  appointed  parish  clerk,  because,  in  a 


292  THE    COUBT. 

population  of  six  hundred  souls,  no  man  could  be 
found  able  to  read  and  write ! 

In  an  action  at  law,  it  has  been  determined  that  an 
unmarried  woman,  having  a  freehold,  might  vote  for 
members  of  Parliament.  Mr.  Higginson  tells  us  that 
a  certain  Lady  Packington  returned  two. 

In  all  periods,  there  have  been  women  who  have 
held  exceptional  positions,  under  peculiar  influence  of 
wealth  or  rank  or  circumstances;  and  though  this 
has  not  affected  the  position  of  other  women,  or  given 
them  any  more  freedom,  yet  it  is  valuable  in  itself, 
because  it  has  kept  the  possibility  of  their  employment 
always  open,  and  acted  like  a  practical  protest  against 
the  law. 

The  Countess  of  Pembroke  was  hereditary  Sheriff 
of  Westmoreland,  and  exercised  her  office.  In  the 
reign  of  Queen  Anne,  Lady  Rous  did  the  same,  ''girt 
with  a  sword."  Henry  VIII.  once  granted  a  com- 
mission of  inquiry,  under  the  great  seal,  to  Lady  Anne 
Berkeley,  who  opened  it  at  Gloucester,  and  passed 
sentence  under  it. 

Some  of  the  old  legal  writers  averred,  that  a  woman 
might  serve  in  almost  any  of  the  great  offices  of  the 
kingdom.  Lately  we  find  it  stated  that  a  woman  may 
be  elected  as  constable,  since  she  can  hire  a  man  to 
serve  for  her;  but  she  may  not  be  elected  overseer 
of  the  poor,  because,  in  this  case,  substitution,  if  not 
impossible,  would  be  difficult! 

What  were  the  peculiar  poHtical  excitements  which 
enabled  Lady  Packington  to  return  two  members  of 


THE   ENGLISH    COMMON   LAW.  293 

Parliament,  we  are  not  told;  but  it  is  quite  certain 
that  women  of  twenty-one,  duly  qualified,  cannot  and 
do  not  vote  for  members  of  Parliament  by  virtue  of 
that  decision.  In  rural  districts,  where  personal  influ- 
ence weighed  a  good  deal,  such  a  vote  might  be 
courteously  winked  at.  A  woman  of  property  and 
standing,  in  Nova  Scotia,  has  in  this  manner,  for 
more  than  forty  years,  cast  her  annual  vote,  without 
rebuke  or  interruption;  but,  should  any  number  of 
women  act  on  this  precedent,  a  legal  restraint  would 
doubtless  be  laid. 

No  single  woman,  having  been  seduced,  has  any 
remedy  at  common  law;  neither  has  her  mother  nor 
next  friend.  If  her  father  can  prove  service  rendered, 
he  may  sue  for  loss  of  service. 

In  what  ''bosom  of  divinitye"  does  this  law  rest? 
Here  is  a  remedy  for  the  loss  of  a  few  Iiours,  but  no 
penalty  held  up  in  terrorem,  to  warn  man  that  he  may 
not  trifle  with  honor,  womanly  purity,  and  childish 
ignorance  or  innocence. 

In  the  eye  of  this  law,  female  chastity  is  only  valu- 
able for  the  work  it  can  do.  It  must  not  be  thought, 
however,  that  the  English  common  law  stands  alone 
in  this  moral  deformity.  Under  the  French  law,  fe- 
male chastity  does  not  seem  of  any  worth,  even  in 
consideration  of  the  work  it  can  do.  In  honest  indig- 
nation, Legouv6  exclaims, — 

"Let  a  man,  who  has  seduced  a  child  of  fifteen  years  by  a 
promise  of  marriage,  be  brought  before  a  magistrate.     He  has 


294  THE    COUKT. 

under  the  law  a  right* to  say,  'There  is  my  signature,  it  is  true; 
but  I  deny  it.    A  debt  of  the  heart  is  void  before  the  law.' " 

Thus  everywhere,  in  practice  and  theory,  in  society 
and  in  law,  for  rich  and  poor,  is  public  purity  aban- 
doned,— the  bridle  thrown  upon  the  neck  of  all  rest- 
ive and  depraved  natures. 

Manufacturers  seduce  their  work-people;  the  heads 
of  workshops  refuse  to  employ  girls  who  will  not  sell 
themselves,  soul  and  body,  to  them;  masters  corrupt 
their  servants.  Out  of  5,083  lost  women  counted  by 
Duchatelet  at  Paris  in  1830,  there  were  285  domestic 
servants  seduced,  and  afterwards  dismissed  by  their 
employers.  Commission-merchants,  officers,  students, 
deceive  the  poor  girls  from  the  province  or  the  coun- 
try, drag  them  to  Paris,  and  leave  them  to  perish. 
At  all  the  great  centres  of  industry,  as  at  Rheims  and 
at  Lille,  are  societies  organized  to  recruit  the  houses 
of  sin  in  Paris. 

This  is  well  known  to  be  true  of  all  the  large  Eng- 
lish towns;  yet  the  law  is  powerless,  and  philanthropy 
interferes  with  no  other  result  than  that  of  driving 
these  societies  from  one  post  to  another. 

Can  women  be  expected  to  believe  that  the  law 
would  be  powerless,  if  there  were  a  sound  public 
opinion  behind  it  to  sustain  the  law;  if  there  were 
any  desire  on  the  part  of  the  majority  of  men  that  it 
should  be  sustained?  ''Punish  the  young  girl,  if  you 
will,"  continued  Legouve;  ''but  punish  also  the  man 
who  has  ruined  her.  She  is  already  punished, — pun- 
ished by  desertion,  punished  by  dishonor,  punished 


THE    ENGLISH    COMMON   LAW.  295 

by  remorse,  punished  by  nine  months  of  suffering, 
punished  by  the  charge  of  a  child  to  be  reared.  Let 
him,  then,  be  struck  in  his  turn.  If  not,  it  is  no  longer 
public  modesty  that  you  defend:  it  is  the  'lord  para- 
mount,' the  vilest  of  the  rights  of  the  ' seigneur.*" 

In  the  laws  which  regard  single  women,  we  object, 
then, — 

1.  To  the  withholding  of  the  elective  franchise. 

2.  To  the  law's  preference  of  males,  and  the  issue 
of  males,  in  the  division  of  estates. 

3.  We  object  to  the  estimate  of  woman  which  the 
law  sustains,  which  shuts  her  out  from  all  public  em- 
ployment, for  many  branches  of  which  she  is  better 
fitted  than  man. 

4.  We  object  to  that  estimate  of  woman's  chastity 
which  makes  its  existence  or  non-existence  of  impor- 
tance only  as  it  affects  the  comfort  or  income  of  man. 
■  We  do  not  mean  that  the  present  interpretation  of 
the  common  law  does  not  sometimes  show  a  more 
liberal  estimate  than  the  law  itself,  but  rather  that  the 
existence  of  this  law,  unrepealed,  unchristianized,  is  a 
forcible  restraint  upon  the  progress  of  society. 

•  **A  legal  fiction,"  says  Maine  in  his  "Ancient  Law," 
*'  signifies  any  assumption  which  conceals,  or  affects  to 
conceal,  the  fact,  that  a  rule  of  law  has  undergone 
alteration,  its  letter  remaining  unchanged,  while  its 
operation  is  modified."  Such  fictions  may  be  useful 
in  the  infancy  of  society;  but,  like  absurd  formulas 
and  embarrassing  technicalities,  they  should  give  way 
before  advancing  common  sense,  before  the  diffusion 


296  THE    COURT. 

of  general  intelligence  and  a  common-school  system, 
which  is  destined  to  qualify  the  humblest  man  for  a 
full  understanding  of  the  law  under  which  he  lives. 

We  have  now  to  consider  the  laws  concerning  mar- 
ried women.  ^'On  whatsoever  branch  of  jurispru- 
dence may  lie  the  charge,"  says  a  late  reviewer,  ''of 
working  the  heaviest  sum  of  suffering,  perhaps  we 
shall  not  err  in  saying  that  the  sharpest  and  cruellest 
pangs  are  those  which  have  been  inflicted  by  our 
marriage-laws."  In  making  our  abstracts,  we  have 
need  to  avoid  the  absurd  complications  which  confuse, 
not  only  simple-minded  people,  but  lawyers  them- 
selves; and,  to  avoid  any  charge  of  ignorance  or 
mistake,  we  will,  as  far  as  possible,  adopt  the  lan- 
guage of  Mrs.  Bodichon's  ''Summary,"  which  has 
stood  for  six  years  before  the  English  public  without 
impeachment. 

We  shall  not  discuss  the  question,  as  to  what  con- 
stitutes fitness  for  marriage  in  the  eye  of  the  law.  In 
Scotland  and  in  England,  the  consent  of  the  parties  is 
said  to  be  the  "essence  of  marriage;"  but,  alas!  in 
how  many  cases  is  this  "consent"  taken  for  granted 
only,  it  being,  in  fact,  the  most  baseless  of  legal  fic- 
tions! 

In  commenting  on  the  English  law  as  compared 
with  the  Scotch,  the  reviewer  adds,  "A  code  so  un- 
satisfactory, so  unsettled,  and  by  every  alteration  com- 
ing so  palpably  near  to  their  own  system,  is  one  which 
Scotchmen  may  be  pardoned  for  declining  further  to 
consider,  and  which  certainly  they  cannot  be  expected 


THE   ENGLISH    COMMON   LAW.  297 

to  recognize  as  the  model  to  which  their  own  should 
be  conformed.'' 

The  rule  of  the  English  law  was,  at  the  institu- 
tion of  the  Divorce  Court,  that  the  wife  should  have 
the  same  domicile  as  her  husband,  and  that  within 
English  territory.  A  dishonest  domicile  barred  her 
claim  to  divorce;  and  the  husband  who  abandoned 
his  wife,  and  fixed  his  residence  abroad,  effectually 
bound  her  to  him.  Justice  has  of  late  been  done, 
because  it  was  justice,  heedless  of  the  question  of 
domicile. 

There  are  in  relation  to  this  subject  many  provisions 
which  wrong  men  and  women  alike;  and,  if  there 
are  any  which  especially  wrong  woman,  they  wrong 
man  in  a  still  higher  degree  through  her.  As  an 
example  of  the  former  class,  we  may  take  the  im- 
possibility of  release  from  a  hopelessly  insane  partner, 
which  makes  the  point  of  the  wonderful  story  of 
''Jane  Eyre." 

Now,  several  things  are  quite  evident  to  the  eye 
of  common  sense: — 

First,  That  the  insane  partner  should  be  properly 
provided  for  during  life,  in  the  upper  classes,  by  the 
sane  partner;  in  the  lower,  by  the  parish  or  state. 

Second,  That  as  it  is  a  sin  against  God  and  society 
to  bring  children  into  the  world,  born  of  a  hopelessly 
insane  parent;  so,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  sin 
against  God  and  society  to  compel  any  man  or 
woman  to  a  life  of  hopeless  celibacy. 

Third,  That,  if  the  law  does  use  this  compulsion, 


298  THE    COURT. 

it  is  responsible  for  the  vicious  connections  that  in- 
evitably grow  out  of  it;  ''car  les  mauvaises  lois  pro- 
duisent  les  mauvaises  mceurs."*  I  should  not  turn 
aside  from  my  main  point  to  consider  this,  even  for 
a  moment,  if  it  were  not  a  striking  instance  of  the 
want  of  common  sense  which  afflicts  the  common 
law,  and  if  I  had  not  in  my  own  experience  been 
made  aware  of  its  frightful  results.  Within  the  limits 
of  one  small  parish  in  the  city  of  Toronto,  Canada 
West,  I  found  four  instances  in  which  men  of  the 
middle  class  had  taken  the  right  of  divorce  into 
their  own  hands,  and  were  illegally  married  a  second 
time.  These  persons,  if  not  markedly  religious,  were 
respectable,  orderly  members  of  society,  living  prop- 
erly in  their  families,  supporting  the  wives  they  had 
left,  and  justifying  the  course  they  had  taken.  Two 
of  them  had  left  England  on  account  of  the  hope- 
less  insanity   of  their   wives,    and   two   on   account 


*  A  curious  instance  of  the  immoral  result  of  holding  marriage  sacramental, 
and  indissoluble  under  all  circumstances,  comes  within  my  personal  experience 
while  I  am  correcting  these  pages  for  the  press,  Oct.  11,  1861. 

A  young  Catholic  girl  was  divorced  some  years  ago,  immediately  after  mar- 
riage, on  account  of  the  bad  conduct  of  her  husband.  She  was  received  into 
the  family  of  a  brother-in-law,  in  every  way  highly  respectable.  For  the  last 
two  years,  she  has  been  courted  by  an  officer  in  the  navy  of  the  United  States; 
but  nowhere  in  New  England  could  a  Catholic  priest  be  found  willing  to  marry 
them.  The  church  still  holds  her  responsible  to  her  first  vows.  The  officer 
honestly  desired  to  marry  her;  but  the  natural  result  of  her  ignorance  and  per- 
plexity followed.  Expecting  to  become  a  mother,  and  rejected  by  her  family, 
she  came  to  me  for  advice.  As  the  officer  is  a  Protestant,  I  recommended  that 
they  should  be  married  by  a  minister  of  that  faith.  She  again  consulted  her 
priest,  and  was  told  that  it  was  less  sinful  for  her  to  remain  in  her  present  rela- 
tion to  her  lover  than  to  receive  a  sacrament  from  unholy  hands;  the  priest 
ignoring  utterly  the  legal  protection  and  maintenance  which  she  might  thus 
receive.  ■  - 


THE   ENGLISH   COMMON   LAW.  299 

of  their  hopeless  immorality;  the  latter,  cases  in 
which  the  law  would  have  granted  a  divorce,  but 
at  an  expense  which  the  husband  could  not  pay. 
When  I  first  heard  this  account  of  one  person,  I 
resented  it  as  a  slander,  and  went  to  console  the 
afflicted  wife,  who  was  overwhelmed  by  the  sup- 
posed rumor. 

The  husband  met  me  at  the  door,  with  an  honest, 
unabashed,  but  distressed  face.  "Don't  deny  it  to 
her,"  said  he.  ''I  never  committed  but  one  sin,  and 
that  was  when  I  kept  it  from  her.  She  was  a  sweet, 
pious  creature;  and  I  feared  she  would  not  consent." 

This  man  told  me  that  he  sent  six  hundred  dollars 
yearly  to  his  insane  wife ;  that  this.kept  her  better  than 
he  could  afford  to  keep  himself  and  his  family:  "but," 
said  he,  "her  station  was  always  higher  than  mine." 

In  the  other  cases,  the  men  had  told  their  stories, 
and  the  wives  had  consented  to  the  arrangement. 
It  is  obvious,  that,  if  a  wife  wished  to  withdraw  from 
a  husband  in  this  manner,  she  could  not  do  it,  on 
account  of  property  restrictions,  and  the  common 
unfitness  for  self-support.* 

In  the  marriage  of  a  minor,  the  consent  of  the 
father,  or  of  a  guardian  appointed  by  him,  is  neces- 


*  The  only  excuse  for  considering  this  point,  in  an  essay  pleading  especially 
for  women,  is  that  the  law  bears  unequally  on  the  two  sexes;  pressing  hardest 
on  woman,  on  account  of  her  pecuniary  dependence,  and  general  subordination 
to  man. 

A  woman,  every  reader  will  understand,  would  find  it  impossible  to  free 
herself  from  her  obligations,  like  the  men  referred  to  in  the  text;  nor  is  it  desir- 
able that  she  should  free  hersdf,  but  that  the  law  should  free  her. 


300  THE    COURT. 

sary,  but  not  that  of  the  mother:  another  indication 
of  the  estimate  the  law  puts  upon  woman,  as  com- 
pared with  man;  and  this  estimate,  whenever  and 
wherever  it  shows  itself,  has  the  effect  to  depress 
every  woman's  desire  to  fit  herself  to  be  a  good 
citizen;  and,  when  she  fails  in  citizenship,  man  must 
fail  also,  as  is  ably  shown  by  De  Tocqueville. 

''A  hundred  times  in  the  course  of  my  life,"  he 
says,  ''I  have  seen  weak  men  display  public  virtue 
because  they  had  beside  them  wives  who  sustained 
them  in  this  course,  not  by  counselling  this  or  that 
action  in  particular,  but  by  exercising  a  fortifying  in- 
fluence on  their  views  of  duty  and  ambition.  Oftener 
still,  I  have  seen  domestic  influence  operating  to 
transform  a  man,  naturally  generous,  noble,  and  un- 
selfish, into  a  cowardly,  vulgar,  and  ambitious  self- 
seeker,  who  thought  of  his  country's  affairs  only  to 
see  how  they  could  be  turned  to  his  own  private 
comfort  or  advancement;  and  this  simply  by  daily 
contact  with  an  honest  woman,  a  faithful  wife,  a 
devoted  mother,  from  whose  mind  the  grand  notion 
of  public  duty  was  entirely  absent."* 

A  man  and  wife  are  one  person  in  law:  a  wife 
loses  all  her  rights  as  a  single  woman.  Her  husband 
is  legally  responsible  for  her  acts:  so  she  is  said  to 
live  under  his  cover.  A  woman's  body  belongs  to  her 
husband.  She  is  in  his  custody,  and  he  can  enforce 
his  right  by  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus. 

*  National  Rev.,  Apr.  1861,  pp.  291,  292. 


THE   ENGLISH   COMMON   LAW.  301 

This  last  is  one  of  the  points  in  which  the  public 
feeling  is  so  far  before  the  law,  that  the  latter  could 
never  be  wholly  enforced. 

If  a  woman  were  unlawfully  restrained  of  her 
liberty,  her  husband  might  take  advantage  of  a  habeas 
corpus  to  get  possession  of  her;  but  it  is  not  probable 
that  any  court,  in  England  or  this  country,  would 
now  grant  one  to  compel  a  wife  to  live  with  her 
husband  against  her  will.  Still,  the  estimate  of  the 
marriage  relation  which  such  laws  sustain  is  so 
low,  that  one  never  can  tell  what  will  happen. 

In  the  year  1858,  a  curious  but  unintentional  satire 
on  the  judicial  position  of  the  husband  occurred  in 
one  of  the  London  courts.  A  delicate,  much-abused 
woman,  unmarried,  but  who  had  been,  in  her  own 
phrase,  ''living  for  some -time"  with  a  man,  brought 
an  action  against  him  for  assault.  Erysipelas  had 
inflamed  her  wounds,  and  endangered  her  life. 

''Had  she  died,  sirrah,"  said  the  magistrate,  ad- 
dressing the  criminal,  "you  must  have  taken  your 
trial  for  murder.  What  have  you  to  say  in  your 
defence?" 

"I  was  in  liquor,  sir,"  pleaded  the  man.  "I  gave 
her  some  money  to  go  to  market.  I  told  her  to  look 
sharp;  but  she  was  gone  more  than  an  hour,  your 
worship:  so,  when  she  came  back,  I — I  was  in 
liquor,  your  honor." 

The  magistrate  leaned  over  his  desk,  and,  speaking 
in  the  most  impressive  manner,  thus  endeavored  to 
cut  short  the  defence: — 


302  THE    COURT. 

"This  woman  is  not  your  slave,  man.  She  is 
not  accountable  to  you  for  every  moment  of  her 
time.  She  is  not/'  he  continued  with  increasing 
fervor,  but  a  growing  embarrassment, — ^''she  is  not 
— she  is  not" — 

He  paused;  but  the  throng  of  wretched  women 
who  crowded  the  court  interpreted  the  pause  aright, 
and  were  not  likely  to  forget  the  lesson. 

A  suppressed  titter  ran  through  the  court :  for  every 
married  man  knew  that  the  words,  ''she  is  not  your 
wife,''  were  those  which  had  sprung  naturally  to 
the  worthy  magistrate's  lips;  and  must  have  passed 
them,  had  not  honest  shame  prevented. 

The  man  then  attempted  to  defend  himself  on 
the  ground  of  jealousy:  but  this  was  instantly  set 
aside;  the  unmistakable  impression  left  on  the  mind 
of  the  court-room  being,  that  the  illegality  of  the 
relation  was  wholly  in  the  woman's  favor. 

Since  the  war,  freed-women  at  Beaufort,  S.  C,  have 
refused  marriage  for  this  very  reason. 

Women  long  ago  understood  this,  and  literary 
gossip  gives  us  a  late  instance  in  a  maiden  aunt 
of  Sir  Charles  Morgan.  This  woman,  descended 
from  Morgan  the  buccaneer,  has  more  than  once 
turned  the  scales  of  an  Irish  election.  When  she 
once  arrested  a  robber  on  her  own  premises,  and 
held  him  fast  till  the  arrival  of  an  officer,  the  gen- 
tlemen of  the  neighborhood  advised  her  not  to  prose- 
cute. 

"It  is  well  known,"  they  argued,  "that  you  refuse 


THE    ENGLISH    COMMON   LAW.  303 

to  employ  a  single  man  on  your  premises,  and  you 
may  be  marked  out  for  the  revenge  of  the  gang." 

''Justice  is  justice,"  she  exclaimed  in  reply;  ''and 
the  villain  shall  go  hang!" 

It  was  quite  natural  that  we  should  find  this 
woman  telling  Lady  Caroline  Lamb  that  no  man 
should  ever  have  legal  rights  over  her,  or  her  prop- 
erty. A  wife's  money,  jewels,  and  clothes  become 
absolutely  her  husband's;  and  he  may  dispose  of 
them  as  he  pleases,  whether  he  and  his  wife  live 
together  or  not.  Her  chattels  real — that  is,  estates 
held  for  a  term  of  years — and  presentations  of 
church  livings  become  absolutely  his;  but,  if  she 
survives  him,  she  may  resume  them. 

Under  such  a  common  law  as  this,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising to  find  something  needed  which  is  called 
equity.  Therefore,  if  a  wife,  on  her  marriage,  gives 
all  her  property  to  her  husband,  the  said  equity 
(Heaven  save  the  mark!)  will,  under  certain  circum- 
stances, oblige  him  to  make  a  settlement  upon  her. 
That  is,  when  the  wife  has  an  interest  in  property 
which  can  only  be  reached  by  the  husband  through 
a  court  of  equity,  that  court  will  aid  him  to  enjoy 
it,  only  on  condition  that  such  part  as  it  thinks  proper 
shall  be  settled  on  the  wife. 

The  civil  courts  in  England  cannot  compel  a  man 
to  support  his  wife:  that  is  left  to  the  action  of  the 
church,  and  her  own  parish. 

A  husband  has  a  freehold  estate  in  his  wife's 
lands  as  long  as  they  both  live. 


304  THE    COURT. 

Money  earned  by  a  married  woman  belongs  abso- 
lutely to  her  husband. 

By  her  husband's  particular  permission,  she  may 
make  a  will;  but  he  may  revoke  his  permission  at 
any  time  before  probate, — that  is,  before  the  will 
is  exhibited  and  proved, — even  if  after  the  wife's 
death. 

The  custody  of  a  child  belongs  to  the  father.  The 
mother  has  no  right  of  control.  The  father  may 
dispose  of  it  as  he  sees  fit.  If  there  be  a  legal 
separation,  and  no  special  order  of  the  court,  the 
custody  of  the  children  (except  the  nutriment  of 
infants)  belongs  legally  to  the  father. 

Except  the  nutriment  of  infants!  Here  is  a  hint 
from  the  good  God  himself.  Should  we  not  think, 
that  the  first  time  these  words  were  written  down, 
an.d  men  were  compelled  to  see  the  natural  depend- 
ence of  the  child  upon  the  mother, — to  detect  the 
obvious  laws  of  nurture,  natural  and  spiritual, — 
the  right  of  a  good  mother  to  her  child  would  have 
made  itself  clear? 

Yet,  to  this  day,  there  are  many  States  of  our 
own  Union  where  a  mother  can  better  authenticate 
her  right  to  a  negro  slave  than  to  the  young  daugh- 
ter who  is  bone  of  her  bone,  and  flesh  of  her  flesh! 

If  the  direct  influence  of  Christianity  did  not,  in 
some  measure,  modify  the  influence  of  the  law  in 
social  life,  there  would  be  no  such  thing  as  a  mother's 
exercising  maternal  authority  over  a  son.  No  matter 
how  wise,  how  old,  how  experienced,  she  may  be. 


THE    ENGLISH    COMMON   LAW.  305 

she  never  possesses,  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  the  dig- 
nity of  a  boy  who  has  just  attained  his  majority. 
Sufficiently  instructed  in  legal  maxims,  he  can  always 
resist  her,  under  the  influence  of  the  most  besotted 
or  unprincipled  of  fathers. 

The  word  of  a  married  woman  is  not  binding  in 
law,  and  persons  who  give  her  credit  have  no  remedy 
against  her. 

The  moral  results  of  such  a  law  are  sufficiently 
obvious,  not  only  in  England,  but  in  our  own  coun- 
try. The  statute-book  does  not,  cannot,  stand  ab- 
solved, because  public  opinion  in  the  present  day 
abhors  and  contemns  the  woman  who  assists  her  hus- 
band to  defraud  his  creditors,  or  takes  refuge  from 
her  own  debts  behind  this  disgraceful  cover.  Yet,  if 
the  law  gives  her  husband  her  property,  it  ought 
surely  to  hold  him  responsible  for  her  debts.  And 
this  is  what  society  calls  protection! 

As  a  wife  is  always  presumed  to  be  under  the 
control  of  her  husband  (numerous  instances  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding),  she  is  not  considered 
guilty  of  any  crime  which  she  commits  in  his  pres- 
ence. 

When  a  woman  has  consented  to  a  proposal  of 
marriage,  she  cannot  give  away  the  smallest  thing. 
If  she  does  so  without  her  betrothed  husband's  con- 
sent, the  gift  is  illegal;  and,  after  marriage,  he  may 
avoid  it  as  a  fraud  on  him :  a  strong  temptation  to  any 
woman,  one  would  think,  to  give  away  her  all.  You 
see  here  what  estimate  the  law  puts  on  property,  as 

24 


306  THE    COURT. 

an  inducement  to  marriage.  This  provision  evidently 
grew  out  of  the  exigencies  of  the  time,  when  mar- 
riage among  the  Anglo-Saxons  was  a  pure  matter  of 
bargain. 

As  a  protection  against  the  common  law,  it  is 
usual  to  have  some  settlement  of  property  made 
upon  the  wife;  and,  in  respect  to  this  property,  the 
courts  of  equity  regard  her  as  a  single  woman.  Such 
settlements  are  very  intricate,  and  should  be  made  by 
an  experienced  lawyer. 

The  wife's  property  belonging  to  the  husband, 
should  her  scissors,  thimble,  or  petticoats  be  stolen, 
the  indictment  must  describe  either  of  these  articles 
as  his! 

Of  divorce  it  is  only  necessary  to  say,  that  a  di- 
vorce from  the  bonds  of  matrimony  in  England  could 
be  obtained  only  by  act  of  Parliament;  the  right  of 
investigation  resting  with  the  House  of  Lords  alone. 
Until  the  passage  of  the  New  Divorce  Bill,  only  three 
such  divorces  had  ever  been  granted  to  a  woman's 
petition.  The  expense  of  the  most  ordinary  bill  was 
between  three  and  four  thousand  dollars. 

Nor  need  we  dwell  long  on  such  laws  as  relate  to 
widows.  You  may  be  interested  to  hear,  that,  after 
her  husband's  death,  the  widow  recovers  her  right  to 
her  own  clothes  and  jewels;  also  that  the  law  does 
not  compel  her  to  bury  him,  that  being  the  duty  of 
his  legal  representative. 

The  indignation  which  we  might  naturally  feel  at 
the  suggestion  that  a  wife  could  forsake  her  unburied 


THE   ENGLISH    COMMON   LAW.  307 

dead,  cools  a  little  as  the  law  goes  on  to  state,  that  a 
husband  can,  of  course,  deprive  a  wife  of  all  share  in 
his  personal  estate.  Very  graciously,  also,  the  widow 
is  permitted  to  remain  forty  days  in  her  .husband's 
house,  provided  that  she  does  not  re-marry  within  that 
time! 

The  result  of  a  great  deal  of  reading  of  a  great 
many  law-books  is  only  this, — that  we  are  more 
firmly  convinced  than  ever,  that  the  most  necessary 
reform  is  a  simple  erasure  from  the  statute-book  of 
whatever  recognizes  distinctions  of  sex.  You  should 
make  woman,  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  what  she  has 
always  been  in  the  eye  of  God, — a  responsible  hu- 
man being;  and  make  laws  which  such  beings,  male 
or  female,  can  obey. 

Even  Christian,  in  his  edition  of  Blackstone,  said 
long  ago,  that  there  was  no  reason  why  civil  rights 
should  be  refused  to  single  women.  In  every  respect 
but  this,  the  single  woman  is  independent;  but  let 
her  take  to  herself  a  husband,  and  the  law  steps  in  to 
protect  her,  and  she  finds  herself  in  a  position  of 
what  is  called  ''reasonable  restraint."  He  may  give 
her,  says  Blackstone,  moderate  correction;  he  may 
adopt  any  act  of  coercion  that  does  not  endanger 
life;  he  may  beat  her,  but  not  violently.  She  may, 
by  her  labor,  support  him:  but  she  cannot  prevent 
him  from  bestowing  her  earnings,  should  he  happen 
to  die,  upon  those  who  have  most  wronged  her  in 
life;  his  mistress,  it  may  be,  or  his  illegitimate  chil- 
dren.    Do  you  tell  me  that  men  of  good  feeling  never 


308  THE    COURT. 

act  on  such  laws?  Why,  then,  should  men  of  good 
feeling  be  unwilling  to  wipe  them  from  the  statute- 
book? 

For  the  most  part,  it  is  upon  women  of  the  lower 
class  that  the  property-laws  most  hardly  press.  It 
was  the  suffering  of  this  class,  years  ago,  when  the 
common  law  of  Massachusetts  was  the  same  as  that 
of  England,  that  first  roused  my  interest,  and  excited 
my  indignation;  but  the  story  which  the  Hon.  Mrs. 
Norton  tells  us  shows  that  this  class  of  women  are 
not  the  only  sufferers. 

"I  have  learned  the  law  piecemeal,"  she  says,  'by  suffering  all 
it  could  inflict.  I  forgave  my  husband's  wickedness  again  and 
again,  and  found  too  late,  that,  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  practical 
Christianity,  the  forgiving  unto  seventy  times  seven,  was  a  condo- 
nation which  deprived  me  of  all  protection.  My  children  were 
stolen  from  me,  and  put  into  the  vilest  custody,  where  one  of  them 
afterwards  died  for  want  of  a  mother's  commonest  care.  Myhus- 
band  brought  an  action  against  his  kindest  friend,  of  whom  he  bor- 
rowed money  and  received  office.  The  jury  listened  with  disgust, 
and  gav6  their  verdict  against  him.  Then  I  was  told  that  I  might 
write  for  my  bread,  or  my  family  might  support  me.  My  chil- 
dren were  kept  away,  as  their  residence  with  me  would  make  him 
liable  for  my  debts. 

''When  my  mother  died,  and  left  me,  through  my  brother,  a 
small  income,  he  balanced  the  first  payment  by  arbitrarily  stop- 
ping his  own  allowance.  For  the  last  three  years,  I  have  not 
received  a  farthing  from  him.  He  retains  all  my  personal  prop- 
erty which  was  left  in  his  home,  the  gifts  of  the  royal  family  on 
my  marriage,  articles  bought  with  my  own  earnings,  and  presents 
from  Lord  Melbourne.     He  receives  from  my  trustees  the  income 


THE   ENGLISH    COMMON   LAW.  309 

which  my  father  bequeathed  to   me,  which   the  'non-existent* 
wife  must  resign  to  the  '  existent '  husband. 

"I  have  also  the  power  of  earning  by  literature;  but  even  this 
power,  the  gift  of  God,  not  the  legacy  of  man,  bears  fruit  only  for 
him.  Let  him  subpcena  my  publishers,  and  enjoy  his  triumph: 
he  has  shown  me  that  I  was  not  meant  to  write  novels  and  tales, 
but  to  rouse  the  nation  against  such  men  as  he,  and  such  laws 
as  they  sustain.  Let  him  eat  the  bread  I  earn;  but  it  shall  be 
bought  with  the  price  of  his  own  exposure.  If  law  will  not  listen 
to  me,  to  literature  I  will  devote  my  power,  and  secure  for  others 
what  I  have  not  been  able  to  secure  for  myself." 

No  wonder  that  provident  parents  circumvent  such 
a  common  law  by  a  settlement  before  marriage! 
There  is  no  chance  for  a  partnership  of  gains  or  losses 
in  England. 

As  we  have  already  said,  all  sexual  laws  ought  to 
be  wiped  off  the  statute-book;  but  the  Hungarian  law 
which  was  in  force  until  1849,  when  the  German  law 
was  introduced  into  Hungary,  is  a  comment  on  the 
absurdity  of  the  English. 

''No  countrywoman  of  mine/'  said  a  proud  sister 
of  Kossuth,  ''would  ever  submit  to  such  a  marriage 
settlement  as  is  common  in  England."  In  Hungary, 
inherited  property  could  not  be  devised  by  will,  and 
all  unmarried  women  were  considered  minors.  As 
soon  as  she  married,  a  woman  came  of  age,  and  into 
the  full  control  of  her  estates.  She  could  make  a 
will,  and  sign  deeds;  and  was  not  responsible  for  her 
husband's  debts  or  the  family  expenses.     As  a  widow, 


310  THE    COURT. 

she  was  guardian  of  her  children,  and  administrator 
on  her  husband's  property.  So  long  as  she  bore  his 
name,  she  could  exercise  all  his  political  rights.  She 
could  vote  in  the  county  elections,  and  for  depu- 
ties to  the  Diet.  Trained  up  under  such  a  law, 
what  could  the  Hungarian  woman  think  who  found 
herself  for  the  first  time  in  the  power  of  the  English 
law? 

Among  the  refugees  whom  the  misfortunes  of  a 
leading  Hungarian  family  drove  to  these  shores  was 
one  woman  of  the  highest  natural  gifts,  the  best  so- 
cial station.  She  was  married  to  a  man,  handsome, 
accomplished,  and  reckless,  but  hardly  patriotic  enough 
to  have  need  to  fly  with  her.  In  the  city  of  New  York 
she  opened  a  boarding-house  of  the  highest  class,  by 
which  she  strove  to  support  herself  and  her  children. 
A  fascinating  hostess,  a  skilful  manager,  she  suc- 
ceeded, as  might  be  expected.  Soon  her  improvident 
husband  followed  her.  At  first,  he  did  not  attempt  to 
annoy  her;  but,  in  time,  some  one  was  found  cruel 
enough  to  expound  to  him  the  English  common  law. 
He  stared,  refused  to  believe;  but  finally  entered  his 
wife's  house,  seized  her  earnings,  compelled  her  board- 
ers to  pay  their  money  into  his  hands,  stripped  her  of 
all  power  to  pay  her  rent  and  provide  for  her  family, 
and  then  took  himself  off,  enraptured,  doubtless,  with 
his  brief  experience  of  English  an-d  American  liberty. 
Stripped  of  peace,  position,  and  property,  the  injured 
wife  had  no  longer  courage  to  struggle.  In  under- 
hand ways,  to  evade  the  unjust  law,   her  personal 


THE    ENGLISH    COMMON   LAW.  311 

friends  settled  her  upon  a  little  farm,  where  her  shat- 
tered hopes  found  a  short  repose. 

A  few  years  ago,  an  American  woman  of  captivat- 
ing address  gained  great  reputation  in  Paris  as  a 
milliner.  She  had  a  profligate  husband,  whom  she 
invited  to  tea  every  Sunday,  supplying  him  at  that 
time  with  a  sum  for  his  weekly  expenses.  In  an  evil 
day,  seduced  by  promises  of  high  patronage,  she  went 
to  London.  She  was  very  successful;  but  in  a  few 
months  her  husband  surprised  her,  seized  all  she  pos-' 
sessed,  and,  turned  adrift  on  the  streets,  she  went  back 
to  a  country  where  the  law  would  protect  her  industry. 
Marriage  has  been  sought  only  to  legalize  a  theft, — 
to  apply  the  words  of  Wendell  Phillips,  when  '^  union 
was  robbery. ^^  A  respectable  servant,  who  had  laid  by 
a  considerable  sum,  was  sought  in  marriage  by  an 
apparently  suitable  person.  On  the  day  before  the 
marriage,  she  put  her  bank-book  into  his  hands.  After 
the  ceremony,  he  said  to  her,  ''I  am  not  well  in  health, 
and  do  not  feel  equal  to  supporting  a  family:  you 
had  better  go  back  to  service."  Naturally  indignant, 
she  responded,  "Give  me,  then,  my  bank-book." — 
''I  am  too  feeble  to  spare  the  money,"  he  replied. 
She  w»nt  back  to  service,  and  has  never  seen  him 
since;  but,  of  course,  she  has  been  often  obliged  to 
change  her  name  and  residence  to  protect  herself  from 
a  long  succession  of  extortions. 

We  see  thus,  that  if  a  woman  is  able  to  conquer 
her  fate,  and  to  gain  a  livelihood  ki  spite  of  a  disso- 
lute or  incompetent  husband,  her  home  is  not  her  own. 


312  THE    COURT. 

Her  husband's  folly  may,  at  any  moment,  deprive  her 
children  of  bread. 

I  have  said  that  there  was  no  woman  so  pitiable  as 
an  heiress.  I  said  it  advisedly.  I  thought  of  the  long 
persecution  she  must  bear  from  unwelcome  suitors, — 
of  all  appreciation  of  her  personality,  ever  so  lovely 
or  gifted  or  individual,  sunk,  as  it  must  be,  in  the  mire 
of  her  money. 

Mrs.  Reid  says,  justly,  that  this  money  is  not  so 
much  her  own  as  a  perquisite  attached  to  her  person 
for  the  benefit  of  her  future  husband;  the  larger  por- 
tion of  which  will  eventually  pass  to  his  heirs,  whether 
of  her  blood  or  not.  If  forced  from  ill  treatment  to 
leave  his  roof,  the  law  will  return  her  but  a  scanty 
pittance. 

The  nature  of  the  law  itself,  and  that  estimate  of 
woman  on  which  it  is  based,  are  so  identical,  that  we 
are  compelled,  as  we  turn  over  its  pages,  to  treat 
these  two  points  as  one. 

''For  one-half  the  human  race,"  said  Mrs.  Reid 
years  ago,  ''the  highest  end  of  civilization  is  to  cling 
like  a  weed  upon  a  wall;"  a  curious  instance  of  the 
power  that  the  use  of  language  has  over  a  fact. 
There  is  nothing  captivating  in  clinging  like  a  "weed 
to  a  wall;"  but  most  women  are  satisfied  to  hang 
like  the  "vine  about  the  oak." 

It  is  a  great  misfortune,  that  this  estimate  of  woman 
not  only  governs  the  courts  in  their  decisions,  but  en- 
ters into  and  moulds  all  the  movements  of  society. 
Such  an  estimate  leads  to  constant  contradictions; 


THE    ENGLISH    COMMON    LAW.  313 

being,  as  it  is,  directly  the  opposite  of  the  fad  in  so 
many  cases,  and  of  the  Divine  Will  in  all.  In  a  book 
on  women  recently  published  by  a  lawyer  in  England, 
I  found  a  pithy  paragraph  to  this  point,  concluding 
some  observations  on  the  comparative  longevity  of  the 
sexes:  ''The  wife,"  he  says,  ^^ fitly  survives  the  hus- 
band, both  to  take  care  of  his  premature  infirmity,  and 
to  consummate  the  rearing  of  their  offspring"! — a 
creative  effort  of  the  imagination  which  certainly  en- 
titles the  writer  to  the  laurels  of  the  century. 

One  reason  that  the  wages  of  women  are  kept 
down  is,  that,  for  the  most  part,  women  do  not  begin 
to  labor  early;  do  not  devote  themselves  in  youth  to 
any  trade  or  profession,  so  as  to  compete  with  men 
who  have.  The  plodding  and  steady  habits  of  the 
man  of  business,  he  has  acquired  in  his  early  years; 
and  they  are  developed  by  the  fact,  that  he  is  sole 
master  of  what  he  can  earn,  and  can  dispose  of  it  as 
he  thinks  proper:  but  his  wife  has  been  brought  up 
in  no  such  school, — has  no  such  motive  to  industry. 
Should  she  toil  on  for  ever,  she  cannot  possess  what 
she  acquires,  nor  lay  out  the  smallest  part  of  it,  with- 
out another's  leave.  Even  when  man  says  to  her  with 
the  sanction  of  the  church  and  in  the  presence  of 
God,  ''With  all  my  worldly  goods  I  thee  endow,"  it 
means  only  that  she  is  invited  to  enjoy,  not  pos- 
sess them.  This  estimate  of  her  rights,  her  position, 
and  her  ability,  made  manifest  in  every  law-book,  in 
the  church  itself,  and  obvious  in  every  social  form,  dis- 
courages her  whenever  she  would  devote  herself  to  any 


314  THE    COURT. 

lucrative  employment;  so  that  it  is  only  in  desertion 
and  despair,  for  the  most  part,  that  she  becomes  a 
laborer.  She  is  not  always  conscious  of  this  discour- 
agement. She  quiets  the  Cerberus  within  by  a  three- 
times-repeated  ''It  is  not  proper,"  without  pausing  to 
analyze  the  conventional  instinct.  Here  we  find  the 
real  significance  of  the  proverb,  ''A  man  of  straw  is 
worth  a  woman  of  gold;"  for  the  ''man  of  straw"  is, 
at  least,  worth  such  money  as  he  may  hereafter  earn, 
which  the  "woman  of  gold"  is  not. 

We  hear  a  great  deal  about  laws  for  the  protection 
of  women;  but  we  cannot  urge  too  often  the  remark 
of  James  Davis  in  his  Prize  Essay  of  1854,  "that  all 
early  legislation  for  woman  was  founded,  not  on  her 
own  rights,  but  on  those  of  her  husband  and  children, 
and  the  State  over  her.^' 

When  one  remembers  that  the  "seat  of  the  law  is 
the  bosom  of  God,"  it  strikes  one  strangely,  that  moral 
consequences  to  character  have  so  little  to  do  with 
what  one  may  call  "sexual  legislation." 

In  speaking  of  the  frequenting  of  disreputable 
houses,  neither  Montesquieu,  nor  Dr.  Wood  in  his 
"History  of  Civil  Law,"  finds  a  single  word  to  say 
as  to  the  moral  degradation  of  the  race,  of  the  spe- 
cial degradation  of  woman  involved  in  it,  but  both 
grow  eloquent  concerning  the  ruin  of  the  State.  It 
requires  a  sounder  mode  of  thinking  than  most  men 
possess  to  see  the  relation  between  the  ruin  of  the 
State  and  their  own  bad  habits,  the  loss  of  one  man's 
purity.     Thus  the  laws  concerning  adultery,  or  divorce 


THE   ENGLISH   COMMON    LAW.  315 

for  that  cause,  bring  the  heaviest  penalties,  social  and 
legal,  upon  the  head  of  an  offending  woman.  The 
legal  excuse  for  this  positive  injustice  is  the  safety  of 
the  family  and  the  State, — ^the  great  crime  of  im- 
posing upon  a  family  false  representatives  of  its  name 
and  honor;  but  a  woman's  brain  and  conscience  are 
too  clear  to  rest  in  this  masculine  decision. 

If  a  man  cannot  bring  a  false  representative  into 
his  own  family,  he  can  carry  it  into  his  neighbor's, 
when  his  profligate  life  violates  the  social  compact; 
and,  as  to  his  own  family,  his  vices  may  injure  it 
far  more  than  the  infidelity  of  his  wife.  At  the 
worst,  her  misconduct  will  only  bring  into  the  shelter 
of  his  home  a  child  who  grows  up  protected  socially 
by  her  fraud;  but,  if  he  choose  to  ''spend  his  sub- 
stance in  riotous  living,"  his  wife  and  children  may, 
while  the  law  gives  him  exclusive  right  to  their 
common  property,  be  deserted,  or  driven  from  their 
homes,  to  make  room  for  those  who  are  the  com- 
panions of  his  guilt.  It  is  quite  possible,  it  will  be 
seen,  therefore,  to  show  another  side  to  this  matter, 
in  no  better  light  than  that  of  expediency.  One 
canton  of  Switzerland  (the  Canton  Glarus)  possesses 
laws  in  regard  to  such  matters,  in  marked  contrast 
to  those  of  the  whole  civilized  world.  The  Gonse- 
quence  is  that  the  falsehood  and  crime  so  common 
elsewhere  are  here  unknown.* 


*"A  man  who  ia  guilty  of  adultery  is  branded  by  public  opinion  as  a  forger 
or  bigamist  is  elsewhere,  and  is  not  eligible  to  public  office  during  the  whole  of 
his  life;  which,  under  such  a  government,  is  the  greatest  punishment  that  can 


316  THE    COURT. 

'^Perhaps  it  would  be  just,"  says  Poynter  on 
''Marriage  and  Divorce,"  in  1824, — "perhaps  it 
would  be  just,  that  where  the  husband  violates  the 
matrimonial  compact,  and  the  property  originally 
belonged  to  the  wife,  he  should  give  back  the  whole 
of  it.     Courts,  however,  have  never  gone  that  length." 

One  would  think,  nevertheless,  that  husbands  them- 
selves might  go  that  length,  and  that  men  who  aspire 
to  the  credit  of  decency  would  be  ashamed  to  eat 
the  bread  of  her  they  have  betrayed  and  wounded. 
How  is  it  that  they  have  deceived  themselves  from 
the  beginning,  and  have  fancied  that  God  requires 
of  woman  a  fidelity  and  purity  that  was  not  of  the 
smallest  consequence  to  themselves? 

In  the  late  debate  in  Parliament  on  the  New 
Divorce  Bill,  when  a  member  objected  to  the  intro- 
duction of  a  clause  equalizing  the  relief  of  divorce 
to  both  sexes,  he  asked,  ''If  this  clause  were  adopted, 
I  should  like  to  know  how  many  married  men  there 
would  be  in  this  house?"  He  was  answered  by 
shouts  of  laughter. 

Would  these  men  have  laughed,  think  you,  if  they 
had  been  asked  how  many  pure  wives  could  be 
found  in  their  family  circles?  and,  if  not,  would  it 
have  been  because  they  were  capable  of  estimating 
the  value  of  womanly  virtue?     No:    he  cannot  esti- 


be  inflicted.  A  man  who  breaks  his  promise  of  betrothal,  or  who  in  any  way 
betrays  a  woman  to  mortification  and  shame,  is  heaped  with  the  same  scorn 
that  women  receive  elsewhere.  The  woman  who  is  betrayed  is  censured;  but 
the  man  is  henceforth  an  outcast." — Cottages  of  the  Alps,  p.  288. 


THE    ENGLISH    COMMON    LAW.  317 

mate  that  who  has  never  known  the  worth  of  manly 
purity.  The  spectres  of  illegitimacy  and  civil  ruin 
are  what  would  stare  them  in  the  face,  and  turn 
their  very  lips  so  white. 

In  France,  says  the  '^Westminster  Review,"  fidel- 
ity on  the  part  of  the  husband  is  considered  a  sort 
of  imbecility.  What  is  thought  of  it  in  England? 
Does  this  scene  in  Parliament,  printed  for  all  our 
girls  to  read,  suggest  any  higher  view? 

''The  frequenting  of  disreputable  places,"  says 
Davis,  "was  once  an  indictable  offence  in  a  man; 
but  that  is  now  obsolete."  Obsolete?  and  why?  A 
lawyer  once  told  me,  that  the  most  obscene  pub- 
lication he  had  ever  read  was  a  book  upon  divorce. 
I  can  well  believe  it.  I  thought  I  knew  how  corrupt 
modern  society  could  be;  but  I  did  not  know  how 
unsoundness  had  darted  to  its  very  core,  till  I  began 
to  read  law,  and  to  understand  the  estimate  which 
that  puts  upon  woman  and  chastity. 

When  I  think  of  these  things,  I  wonder  that  this 
platform  is  not  thronged  with  the  ghosts  of  dead 
and  ruined  women,  crowding  here  to  second  my 
appeal  to  beseech  you  to  grant  human  justice,  to 
require  human  virtue!  And  all  this  sin  is  sheltered 
under  the  plea  of  protection!  "How  many  delicious 
morsels  I  should  miss  if  it  were  not  for  thy  care, 
0  most  excellent  jackal!" 

"Lawyers,"  says  Johnson  in  1777, — "lawyers 
often  pay  women  the  high  compliment  of  supposing 
them  proof  against  all  temptations  combined." 


318  THE    COURT. 

Certainly , whatever  thelawyers  may  do,  the  law  itself 
confidently  expects  of  them  a  superhuman  strength.  It 
gives  them  no  defence  but  immaculateness.  It  offers 
them  no  shelter  but  God's  temple,  no  robe  but  spot- 
less ermine;  and  then,  turning  the  page,  it  says,  ''A 
husband  is  expected  to  be  vigilant,  and  so  prevent 
his  own  dishonor:"  as  if  his  vigilance  and  quick- 
wittedness  could  save  the  woman  whom  his  love 
had  not  blessed. 

Ah!  these  lawyers  are  but  blind  guides,  after  all. 
Centuries  of  discomfiture  and  defeat  have  not  sufficed 
to  teach  them  how  little  security  is  to  be  found  in 
suspicion  and  scepticism.  If  I  do  not  want  my 
groceries  stolen,  I  must  leave  my  storeroom  open. 
The  very  servant  who  would  not  scruple  to  pick 
my  locks  will  know  better  than  to  pick  that  of  her 
own  heart.  ''A  thorough-bred  woman,''  says  Mrs. 
Reid,  "is  good  only  so  far  as  her  husband  suggests 
and  allows;"  and,  so  long  as  this  is  the  standard, 
woman's  duplicity  may  well  match  man's  utmost 
expectation,  and  there  is  not  a  privilege  of  his  open 
vice  that  she  will  not  secure  by  stealth. 

There  w^as  a  time  when  all  the  women  at  the 
court  of  France  blushed  for  one  of  their  number 
who  unluckily  made  use  of  a  hard  word  in  a  proper 
place.  In  like  manner,  the  woman  who  reads  law 
blushes  to  find  herself  even  tolerably  sincere  and 
modest.  It  is  not  expected  of  her.  Why  has  she 
never  done  any  of  the  bad  things  the  law  so  con- 
fidently predicts? 


THE    ENGLISH    COMMON    LAW.  319^ 

All  thinking  people  must  see  how  easily  we  turn 
from  the  consolidated  law  of  ages,  with  its  false  views, 
its  untrue  estimate  of  woman  and  duty,  to  the  ques- 
tion of  the  right  of  suffrage. 

In  1848  and  1850,  we  used  to  hear  a  great  deal  of 
three  objections  to  conferring  this  right  upon  wo- 
men : — 

1st,  Its  incompatibility  with  household  care  and  the  duties 
of  maternity. 

2d,  Its  hardening  effect  on  the  character;  poUtics  not  being  fit 
for  woman. 

3d,  The  inexpediency  of  increasing  competition  in  the  already 
crowded  fields  of  labor  and  office. 

To  these  three  points  we  gave  short  and  summary 
answers : — 

1st,  There  are  a  great  many  women  who  will  never  be  mothers- 
and  housekeepers;  and,  if  there  were  not,  suffrage  is  no  more- 
incompatible  with  maternity  and  housekeeping  than  it  is  with' 
mercantile  life  and  the  club-room. 

2d,  If  it  hardens  women,  it  will  harden  men;  and  the  poUtics 
which  are  not  fit  for  her  are  not  fit  for  him,  nor  will  they  become 
so  till  her  presence  gives  men  a  motive  to  purify  them. 

3d,  At  the  worst,  competition  could  only  go  so  far,  that  a 
man  and  a  woman  would  earn  as  httle  together  as  the  man  now 
does  alone.  This  would  be  better  than  the  present  condition 
of  things ;  for  they  would  then  be  equal  partners,  and  no  longer 
master  and  slave.     Both  would  work,  and  neither  need  pine. 

These  answers,  whether  logical  or  not,  have  practi- 
cally silenced  the  objections.     We  hear  no  more  of 


320  THE    COURT. 

this  nonsense.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  a  respectable 
daily  says,  ''As  to  the  abstract  right  of  a  woman  to 
vote  because  she  is  a  human  being  and  pays  taxes, 
there  is  no  such  abstract  right  in  any  human  being, 
male  or  female :  the  extent  of  the  elective  franchise  is, 
and  must  ever  be,  limited  by  considerations  of  ex- 
pediency." 

Then  a  distinguished  review  goes  on  to  say,  ''that 
while  the  question  of  suffrage  stands  where  it  now 
does,  so  unsettled  that  every  Congress  and  Parliament 
discuss  it  anew,  we  are  glad  that  any  thing  should 
prevent  the  discussion  as  to  conferring  on  woman  a 
duty,  the  grounds  of  which  are  very  vague  and  un- 
determined so  far  as  regards  men;"  and  a  critic  of 
Rosa  Bonheur's  magnificent  pictures  advises  the  "sad 
sisterhood  of  women's-rights  advocates  to  visit  the 
exhibition,  and  sigh  to  think  how  much  one  silent 
woman's  hand  outvalues  for  their  cause  the  pathos 
and  the  jeers  of  their  unlovely  platform." 

Such  remarks  as  these  are  easily  met.  To  the  first 
objector,  who  declares,  although  the  professed  advo- 
cate of  a  republican  government,  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  any  abstract  right  to  vote,  we  reply,  that  in 
this  particular  discussion  we  don't  care  about  abstract 
rights;  what  we  want  is  our  own  share  of  the  tangible 
acknowledged  right  which  human  governments  confer. 
If  in  England  this  right  depends  on  a  property  quali- 
fication, then  we  claim  that  there  the  property  qualifi- 
cation shall  endow  woman  as  well  as  man  with  the 
right  of  suffrage.     If  in  America  it  depends  upon  an 


THE   ENGLISH   COMMON   LAW.  321 

inalienable  right  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of 
happiness,  then  we  demand  that  our  government  rec- 
ognize woman  as  so  endowed,  and  receive  her  vote. 

To  the  reviewer  we  say  also.  If  the  grounds  of  suf- 
frage are  vague  and  undetermined  in  theory,  they  may 
remain  so,  so  far  as  our  interference  is  concerned. 
What  we  ask  to  share  is  the  steady  right  to  vote, 
which  has  been  actually  granted,  and  never  disputed, 
since  our  government  was  founded;  and  sufficiently 
pressed,  we  might  add,  that,  if  there  is  ever  any 
chance  of  limiting  the  right  of  suffrage,  we  shall  do 
all  we  can  to  secure  its  dependence  on  a  certain 
amount  of  education,  in  preference  to  a  certain  amount 
of  wealth. 

As  to  the  art  critic,  we  thank  him  for  caUing  us  the 
"sad  sisterhood."  We  should  be  sorry  to  be  other- 
wise, when  pleading  for  women  before  men;  sorry  to 
find  matter  for  jesting  in  those  purlieus  of  St.  Giles 
and  Five  Points  and  the  Black  Sea,  beating  up  re- 
morselessly against  these  very  doors,  which  lie  at  the 
very  heart  of  our  effort.  As  to  the  matter  of  going 
to  see  the  Horse  Fair  and  the  Highland  Cattle,  it  will 
probably  be  found  to  be  a  fact,  that,  in  every  city 
where  those  great  pictures  have  been  exhibited,  "  wo- 
men's-rights  women''  have  been  their  earliest  visitors; 
and,  standing  before  the  canvas,  have  thanked  God, 
with  an  earnestness  the  art  critic  never  dreamt  of,  for 
that  silent  woman's  hand,  that  glorious  woman's  life. 
It  was  not  necessary  for  him  to  remind  us  of  what 
Solom.on  had  said  so  much  better  three  thousand 

25 


322  THE    COURT. 

years  ago;  namely,  that  "speech  is  silvern,  and  silence 
is  golden."  Nathless,  silver  is  still  current  in  all 
markets;  and,  God  willing,  we  are  not  ashamed  to 
^l^^use  it. 

We  intend  to  claim,  in  words,  the  right  of  suffrage; 
and  why? 

Turning  from  that  wretched  estimate  of  woman, 
and  of  man's  duty  toward  woman,  which  the  law- 
books have  just  offered  us,  we  claim  the  right  of  suf- 
frage, because  only  through  its  possession  can  women 
protect  themselves;  only  through  its  exercise  can  both 
sexes  have  equality  of  right  and  power  before  the  law. 
Whenever  this  happened,  character  would  get  its  le- 
gitimate influence;  and  it  is  just  possible  that  men 
might  become  rational  and  virtuous  in  pri\ate,  if 
association  with  women  compelled  them  to  seem  so  in 
public. 

It  is  noticeable,  that  every  man  disclaims  at  his 
own  hearth,  and  in  the  presence  of  women,  whatever 
there  is  of  disgraceful  appertaining  to  political  or 
other  public  meetings.  Somebody  must  be  responsible 
for  these  things;  and  yet,  if  we  are  to  believe  wit- 
nesses, nobody  ever  does  them.  The  bare  fact  of 
association  must  take  all  the  blame. 

The  laws  already  existing  prove  conclusively  to 
woman  herself,  that  she  has  never  had  a  real  repre- 
sentative. What  she  seeks  is  to  utter  her  own  con- 
victions, so  that  they  shall  redeem  and  save  not 
merely  her  own  sex  but  the  race. 

That  the  right  of  suffrage  would  be  a  protection  to 


THE   ENGLISH   COMMON   LAW.  323 

women,  we  see  from  this  fact,  that  it  would  at  once 
put  an  end  to  three  classes  of  laws: — 

I.  Those  that  protect  her  from  violence. 
11.  Those  made  to  protect  her  from  fraud. 

III.  Those  that  protect  society  from  the  passions  of 
both  sexes. 

The  moment  woman  began  to  exercise  this  right,  I 
think  we  should  see  moral  significance  streaming  from 
every  statute.  We  should  no  longer  hear  that  seduc- 
tion was  to  be  sued  as  ''loss  of  service:"  it  would 
become  loss  of  honor  to  more  than  one.  We  should 
no  longer  hear  that  consent  or  temptation  excused  it: 
we  should  find  that  God  demanded  chastity  of  both 
sexes,  and  had  made  man  the  guardian  of  his  own 
virtue.  We  should  find,  that,  if  its  punishment  ad- 
mitted of  degrees,  it  should  be  heaviest  where  a 
man  committed  it  in  defiance  or  abuse  of  a  positive 
trust. 

Let  us  look  at  a  single  decision  in  the  light  of  these 
principles.  Let  us  take  the  case  of  Harris  versus 
Butler,  reported  in  the  notes  to  Davis's  Prize  Essay. 

A  man  named  Harris  had  apprenticed  his  daughter 
to  a  milliner  named  Butler,  paying  as  an  entrance-fee 
a  sum  equivalent  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  After 
a  short  time,  the  girl  was  seduced  by  her  mistress's 
husband.  She  became  seriously  ill,  and  was  returned 
to  her  father,  who  lost  not  only  his  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars,  but  all  the  benefits  of  her  apprenticeship,  and 
was  obliged  to  provide  her  with  board,  medicine,  and 
nursing. 


324  THE    COURT. 

Why  the  father  became  Uable  for  the  care  of  his 
child  under  such  circumstances  does  not  appear. 
Common  sense  would  suggest  that  the  court  might 
have  required  this  at  the  hands  of  the  Butlers;  but, 
unfortunately,  law  has  very  httle  to  do  with  common 
sense. 

The  father  brought  an  action  against  Butler:  but 
the  defence  urged,  that  he  could  only  sue  for  ''  loss  of 
service;''  that  her  ''services"  were  not  his  after  she 
was  apprenticed  to  Mrs.  Butler;  that  Mrs.  Butler  and 
her  husband  were  ''one  person  in  law;"  and  that,  if 
Butler  chose  to  deprive  himself  of  her  services  for  his 
own  ends,  the  law  had  no  remonstrance  to  make,  no 
redress  to  afford. 

The  prosecution  urged,  that  the  "care  of  morals" 
was  one  of  the  duties  involved  in  the  very  system  of 
apprenticeship;  but  the  court  denied  the  claim,  unless 
it  were  distinctly  set  forth  on  the  articles  signed. 

This  is  but  one  case  out  of  hundreds  accessible  to 
you  all.  The  moment  woman  becomes  a  law-maker, 
such  records  will  be  wiped  out  of  your  life.  They 
may  make  a  certain  sort  of  show  in  your  law-books; 
but  what  have  the  unbending  laws  of  God  to  do  with 
this  "one  person  in  law,"  this  plea  for  "loss  of  ser- 
vice?" At  the  eternal  bar,  no  man  will  dare  to  echo 
that  plea,  no  judge  rehearse  that  verdict.  Such  law 
rests  not  in  the  "bosom  of  God;"  its  voice  chimes 
not  in  keeping  with  the  harmony  of  his  countless 
spheres. 

You  object  to  seeing  women  in  Parliament.     Eng- 


THE   ENGLISH   COMMON   LAW.  325 

lish  lords  tell  us  that  delicate  matters  have  to  be  dis- 
cussed there,  with  which  women  would  hardly  care  to 
meddle.  The  natural  growth  of  society  opens  the 
area  of  all  proprieties.  Delicate  matters  come  to  be 
discussed  in  most  households;  and  it  is  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  they  would  be  more  delicately  and  ra- 
tionally discussed  if  they  were  sometimes  puhlicly 
met.  It  is  my  opinion,  that  no  subject  is  fit  for  dis- 
cussion at  all  that  cannot  be  discussed  between  men 
and  women.  It  is  separating  the  sexes  in  such  cases, 
that  opens  the  way  to  indecency.  All  great  themes 
of  human  thought  and  human  virtue,  men  and  women 
ought  to  be  trained  to  consider  seriously  together; 
and  where  better  than  in  the  Congress  or  the  Parlia- 
ment? Think  only  of  the  debate  which  I  have  quoted 
on  the  New  Divorce  Bill!  Could  such  a  scene  have 
taken  place  in  the  presence  of  women?  Recur  to  the 
trial  of  Queen  Caroline;  or  to  that  of  the  Duke  of 
York,  when  accused  of  conniving  at  the  corrupt 
sale  of  military  commissions  by  his  mistress,  Mrs. 
Clarke. 

Under  date  of  Feb.  16,  1809,  Freemantle  writes: 
''The  scene  which  is  going  on  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons is  so  disgusting,  and  at  the  same  time  so  alarm- 
ing, that  I  hardly  know  how  to  describe  it  to  you.  Of 
course,  while  this  ferment  lasts  (and  God  knows  when 
it  is  to  end),  no  attention  will  be  paid  to  the  business 
of  the  country." 

In  these  instances,  high-bred  men  showed  a  taste  for 
low  scandal;  battening  day  after  day  on  the  same 


326  THE    COURT. 

loathsome  details,  which  the  presence  of  a  single 
woman  must  have  checked.  Here  was  a  woman, 
too,  this  very  Mrs.  Clarke,  somewhat  debased  and 
hardened,  who  had  never  a  seat  in  Parliament,  who 
had  never  dreamed  of  exercising  the  right  of  suffrage, 
yet  was  quite  equal,  as  the  evidence  showed,  to  any 
political  venality,  striving  in  her  way  to  outdo  the  very 
jobbers  of  Downing  Street  itself!  Why  should  elec- 
tions be  scenes  of  tumult,  or  parliaments  free  fields  for 
imbecile  improprieties?  Why  should  not  a  peeress 
feel  herself  as  properly  placed  among  her  peers  as  the 
Queen  seated  at  her  Council? 

We  are  not  likely  to  withdraw  our  claim  while  it 
is  sustained  by  such  a  man  as  John  Stuart  Mill,  who, 
in  his  late  essay  on  "Political  Representation,"  advises 
this  extension  of  the  suffrage:  ''AH  householders,  with- 
out distinction  of  sex,"  he  says,  ''might  be  adopted 
into  the  constituency,  on  proving  to  the  registrar's 
officer  that  they  have  fifty  pounds  a  year,  and  can 
read,  write,  and  calculate." 

"The  almost  despotic  power  of  husbands  over 
wives,"  Mr.  Mill  adds  in  his  "Essay  on  Liberty," 
'^ needs  not  to  be  enlarged  upon  here,  because  noth- 
ing more  is  needed  for  the  complete  removal  of  the 
evil  than  that  wives  should  have  the  same  rights,  and 
should  receive  the  protection  of  the  law  in  the  same 
manner,  as  all  other  persons;  and  because,  on  this 
subject,  the  defenders  of  established  injustice  do  not 
avail  themselves  of  the  plea  of  liberty,  but  stand  forth 
openly  as  the  champions  of  power." 


THE   ENGLISH    COMMON   LAW.  327 

The  dedication  of  this  ''Essay  on  Liberty"  ought 
to  be  preserved  in  these  pages;  for  it  is  full  of  historic 
significance: — - 

"To  the  beloved  and  deplored  memory  of  her  who  was  the  in- 
spirer,  and  in  part  the  author,  of  all  that  has  been  best  in  my  writ- 
ings; the  friend  and  wife,  whose  exalted  sense  of  truth  and  light 
was  my  strongest  excitement,  and  whose  approbation  was  my 
chief  reward, — I  dedicate  this  volume. 

"Like  all  that  I  have  written  for  many  years,  it  belongs  as 
much  to  her  as  to  me;  but  the  work,  as  it  stands,  has  had,  in  a 
very  insufficient  degree,  the  inestimable  advantage  of  her  revision; 
some  of  the  most  important  portions  having  been  reserved  for  a 
more  careful  re-examination,  which  they  are  now  never  destined 
to  receive.  Were  I  but  capable  of  interpreting  to  the  world  one- 
half  the  great  thoughts  and  noble  feelings  which  are  buried  in 
her  grave,  I  should  be  the  medium  of  a  greater  benefit  to  it  than 
is  ever  likely  to  arise  from  any  thing  that  I  can  write,  unprompted 
and  unassisted  by  her  all  but  unrivalled  wisdom." 

I  said  that  this  dedication  ought,  for  many  reasons, 
to  be  preserved  in  these  pages.  What  is  better  fitted 
than  such  a  tribute  to  check  the  jeering  scepticism  of 
the  crowd  as  to  the  ability  and  purity  of  the  sex? 
What  could  lay  a  better  foundation  for  a  better  esti- 
mate on  the  part  of  the  law?  Necker,  in  his  report 
to  the  French  Government,  publicly  awarded  to  his 
wife  the  credit  of  the  recent  retrenchment  in  the  ex- 
penses of  the  Government;  Bowditch  dedicated  his 
translation  of  the  ''M^canique  Celeste"  to  the  wife 
who  aided  him  to  prepare,  and  by  her  self-denial 
opened  a  way  for  him  to  publish  it:    but  where,  in 


328  THE    COURT. 

the  records  of  the  past,  shall  we  find  such  a  tribute 
offered  by  such  a  man,  as  honorable  in  itself  to  the 
first  political  economist  of  our  time  as  it  is  a  gracious 
adornment  to  the  name  of  the  woman  he  loved? 
Does  it  not  promise  in  itself  the  dawning  of  a  brighter 
future  for  woman,  when  no  ''sad  sisterhood"  shall  be 
needed  either  to  proclaim  woman's  rights  or  redress 
her  wrongs?  * 


*  In  reprinting  for  his  collected  works  Mrs.  Mill's  article  on  "The  Enfran- 
chisement of  Women,"  Mr.  Mill  more  lately  says,  "All  the  more  recent  of  these 
papers  were  the  joint  production  of  myself,  and  one  whose  loss,  even  in  a  merely 
intellectual  point  of  view,  can  never  be  repaired  or  alleviated.  But  the  follow- 
ing essay  is  hers  in  a  peculiar  sense;  my  share  in  it  being  little  more  than  that  of 
editor  or  amanuensis.  Its  authorship  having  been  known  at  the  time,  and 
publicly  attributed  to  her,  it  is  proper  to  state,  that  she  never  regarded  it  as  a 
complete  discussion  of  the  subject  which  it  treats  of;  and,  highly  as  I  estimate 
it,  I  would  rather  it  remained  unacknowledged,  than  that  it  should  be  read  with 
the  idea,  that  even  the  faintest  image  can  be  found  in  it  of  a  mind  and  heart, 
which,  in  their  union  of  the  rarest,  and  what  are  deemed  the  most  conflicting 
excellences,  were  unparalleled  in  any  human  being  that  1  have  known  or  read  of. 
While  she  was  the  light,  life,  and  grace  of  every  society  in  which  she  took  part, 
the  foundation  of  her  character  was  a  deep  seriousness,  resulting  from  the  com- 
bination of  the  strongest  and  most  sensitive  feelings  with  the  highest  principles. 
All  that  excites  admiration,  when  found  separately,  in  others,  seemed  brought 
together  in  her, — a  conscience  at  once  healthy  and  tender;  a  generosity  bounded 
only  by  a  sense  of  justice,  which  often  forgot  its  own  claims,  but  never  those  of 
others;  a  heart  so  large  and  loving,  that  whoever  was  capable  of  making  the 
smallest  return  of  sympathy  always  received  tenfold;  and,  in  the  intellectual 
department,  a  vigor  and  truth  of  imagination,  a  delicacy  of  perception,  an  accu- 
racy and  nicety  of  observation,  only  equalled  by  her  profundity  of  speculative 
thought,  and  by  a  practical  judgment  and  discernment  next  to  infallible.  So 
elevated  was  the  general  level  of  her  faculties,  that  the  highest  poetry,  philoso- 
phy, oratory,  or  art,  seemed  trivial  by  the  side  of  her,  and  equal  only  to  express- 
ing some  part  of  her  mind;  and  there  is  no  one  of  these  modes  of  manifestation 
in  which  she  could  not  easily  have  taken  the  highest  rank,  had  not  her  inclina- 
tion led  her  for  the  most  part  to  content  herself  with  being  the  inspirer,  prompter, 
and  unavowed  co-adjutor,  of  others. 

"The  present  paper  was  written  to  promote  a  cause  which  she  had  deeply 
at  heart;  and,  though  appealing  only  to  the  severest  reason,  was  meant  for  the 


THE    ENGLISH    COMMON   LAW.  S29 

About  two  years  since  (1858),  the  Stockholm 
"Aftonblad,"  a  Swedish  newspaper,  stated  that  *Hhe 
authorities  of  the  old  university-town  of  Upsal  had 
granted  the  right  of  suffrage  to  fifty  women  owning 
real  estate,  and  to  thirty-one  doing  business  on  their 
own  account.  The  representative  that  their  vote» 
assisted  in  electing  was  to  sit  in  the  House  of  Bur- 
gesses." 

This  is  the  way  the  matter  is  to  begin.  By  and  by,, 
the  interests  of  labor  and  trade  will  force  the  authori- 
ties  of  Bristol  and  Manchester,  Newcastle  atnd  Plym-^ 
outh,  to  do  the  same  thing;  and,  after  women  have 
gone  on  for  some  twenty  years  electing  members  of 
Parliament,  no  one  of  us  will  be  surprised  to  find  some 
women  sitting  in  that  body.  ''But,"  objects  some- 
body, ''if  that  ever  happens,  we  shall  have  women  on 


general  reader.  The  question,  in  her  opinion,  was  in  a  stage  in  which  no  treat- 
ment but  the  most  cahnly  argumentative  could  be  useful;  while  many  of  the 
strongest  arguments  were  necessarily  omitted,  as  being  unsuited  for  popular 
effect.  Had  she  lived  to  write  out  all  her  thoughts  on  this  great  question,  she 
would  have  produced  something  as  far  transcending  in  profundity  the  present 
essay,  as,  had  she  not  placed  a  rigid  restraint  upon  her  feelings,  she  would  have 
excelled  it  in  fervid  eloquence. 

"Yet  nothing  that  even  she  could  have  written  on  any  single  subject  would 
have  given  an  adequate  idea  of  the  depth  and  compass  of  her  mind.  As,  during 
life,  she  detected,  before  any  one  else  had  seemed  to  perceive  them,  those  changea- 
of  time  and  circumstances,  which,  ten  or  twelve  years  later,  became  subjects- 
of  general  remark;  so  I  venture  to  prophesy,  that,  if  mankind  continue  to  im- 
prove, their  spiritual  history  for  ages  to  come  will  be  the  progressive  working, 
out  of  her  thoughts,  and  the  realization  of  her  conceptions." 

Such  tributes,  borne  by  noble  men  to  noble  women,  are  so  frequently  hidden, 
away  in  the  heavy  volumes  which  lie  out  of  ordinary  reach,  that  I  take  pleasure- 
in  bringing  them  to  support  my  own  plea;  and  I  only  wish  I  could  as  easily  add 
to  that  in  the  t«xt  the  charming  acknowledgments  of  Alexis  de  Tocqueville  to. 
his  wife. 


330  THE   COURT. 

juries,  women  pleading  at  the  bar,  women  as  attor- 
neys, and  so  on."  And  this  is  exactly  what  we  want. 
Women  are  very  much  needed  on  juries,  and  female 
criminals  will  never  be  tried  by  their  peers  until  they 
are  there.  It  is  very  seldom  that  a  criminal  case  in 
which  women  are  implicated  is  brought  forward,  when 
women  could  not  be  of  immense  service  in  clearing 
up  evidence,  and  showing  to  the  male  jurors  on  the 
panel  the  absurdity  or  impossibility  of  some  of  the 
statements.  The  recent  instance  of  Miss  Shedden, 
who  took  up,  at  a  moment's  notice,  a  case  which  five 
well-feed  lawyers  of  distinction  declared  themselves 
unprepared  to  defend,  might  be  quoted  in  confirma- 
tion of  our  view.  Mr.  Russell  said  at  the  Liverpool 
Assizes  lately,  in  a  case  which  involved  some  peculiar 
evidence,  ''The  evidence  of  women  is,  in  some  re- 
spects, superior  to  that  of  men.  Their  power  of 
judging  of  minute  details  is  better;  and  when  there 
are  more  than  two  facts,  and  something  be  wanting, 
their  intuitions  supply  the  deficiency."  And  precisely 
the  qualities  which  fit  them  to  give  evidence,  fit  them 
to  sift  and  test  it.  Women  often  have  occasion  to 
smile,  sometimes  sadly,  sometimes  mischievously,  at 
the  verdicts  passed  upon  their  own  sex.  If  women 
were  to  enter  into  the  practice  of  law,  or  become  law- 
makers, an  immense  change  would  take  place  in  all 
that  relates  to  it.  Absurd  technicalities  would  be 
swept  off  its  papers.  One  hundred  words  would  no 
longer  do  duty  for  one.  Simple,  common-sense  forms 
of  expression  would  take  place  of  the  obsolete  Latin 


THE   ENGLISH   COMMON   LAW.  331 

and  Norman-French.  Daylight  would  be  let  into  in- 
dictments, and  flaws  would  soon  be  hard  to  find.  No 
woman  ever  existed,  whose  patience  would  stand,  in 
cases  where  meaning  and  law  are  evident,  the  absurd 
delays  of  chancery  courts,  or  the  still  absurder  ''filing 
of  objections,"  or  ''defining  of  terms,"  with  which  law- 
yers amuse  a  jury,  and  which  Sir  Leicester  Dedlock, 
we  are  told,  considered  as  the  bulwarks  of  the  English 
Constitution.  This  impatience  of  woman  might  not 
be  very  valuable,  if  she  were  to  legislate  alone;  but, 
controlled  by  man's  conservative  caution,  it  will  be  of 
the  greatest  service. 

We  are  perpetually  met  by  the  opposition  extended 
to  any  thing  that  is  new.  It  ought  to  be  our  object, 
therefore,  to  show,  that  for  woman  to  claim  and  pos- 
sess the  right  of  suffrage  is  by  no  means  a  new  thing. 
It  is  easy  to  show  from  the  records  of  most  nations, 
that  women  held  and  exercised  political  power  so 
long  as  power  was  supposed  to  inhere  chiefly  in  prop- 
erty, and  so  long  as  women,  either  single  or  in  asso- 
ciation, possessed  property  not  represented  by  men. 
Thus  the  suppression  of  religious  houses  in  England 
put  an  end  to  the  representation  of  abbesses.  "  Truly, 
we  think  more  .of  money  than  of  love,"  said  one  of 
the  St.  Simoniens:  "we  have  more  consideration  for 
bags  of  dollars  than  human  dignity.  We  emancipate 
women  in  proportion  as  they  are  property-holders; 
but,  in  proportion  as  they  are  women,  our  laws 
declare  them  inferior  to  us."  It  was  only  when  the 
republican  idea  had  crept  to  a  certain  extent  into  mo- 


332  THE    COURT. 

narchical  governments  themselves,  that  women  gradu- 
ally dropped  a  recognized  public  influence  which  had 
depended  on  rank  and  wealth.  What  men  have  to 
do  is,  not  to  reconcile  themselves  to  a  woman's  right 
to  vote, — a  right  acknowledged  hundreds  of  years 
ago,  which  is  still  covertly  acknowledged  when  wo- 
man means  property, — but  to  reconcile  themselves 
to  the  idea  that  woman  is  a  human  being,  and  that 
humanity  has  a  right  to  vote.  Wherever  govern- 
ments decide  that  every  individual  has  a  right  to  life, 
liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  they  must  ad- 
mit the  right  of  the  individual  woman  to  vote,  or 
deny  the  fact  of  her  humanity.  There  is  the  di- 
lemma. In  support  of  this  statement,  I  should  have 
shown  you,  that  in  France,  as  early  as  the  reign  of 
Louis  XIV.  the  political  rights  of  property  were  re- 
spected in  the  persons  of  women.  At  the  present 
day,  the  remains  of  the  old  feudal  and  communal 
system  still  secure  a  kind  of  political  influence  to  cer- 
tain women  in  the  provinces,  and  often  confer  upon 
their  husbands  a  right  of  franchise.  In  the  reign  of 
Louis  XIV,  the  women  who  hawked  and  vended 
fish  took  up  the  business  of  the  ''insolvent  fishmon- 
gers," and  managed  so  well,  that  they  acquired 
wealth,  married  their  children  into  the  first  families, 
and  finally  became  an  estate  of  the  realm. 

''Les  Dames  de  la  Halle,"  or  ''Dames  of  the  Mar- 
ket," as  they  are  called,  have  a  corporate  existence; 
and,  if  corporations  have  no  souls,  they  ordinarily  pos- 
sess franchises  !     They  have  their  queen,  their  laws. 


THE    ENGLISH    COMMON   LAW.  333 

and  a  language  peculiar  to  themselves.  They  take 
part  in  revolutions,  and  send  deputations  to  the  foot 
of  the  throne.  Nor  am  I  alluding  now  to  long-past 
feudal  or  re-actionary  crises.  Louis  Napoleon  treats 
them  as  civilly  as  he  does  the  clergy.  When  he  was 
married,  and  when  the  young  prince  was  born,  they 
went  to  the  Tuileries  in  their  court-dress.  Their 
princesses — and  we  are  told  that  their  blood-royal 
claims  the  higher  privilege  of  beauty  also — their 
princesses  took  the  front  rank  in  the  procession,  and 
offered  bouquets  to  their  imperial  majesties.  In  re- 
sponse, Louis  Napoleon  gave  to  them  what  he  gives 
to  all  corporations, — a  very  diplomatic  speech. 

I  have  told  you  what  was  granted  at  Upsal  in 
1858.  It  is  a  curious  fact,  that,  just  at  the  moment 
when  this  question  of  suffrage  was  first  agitated  by 
the  women  of  the  United  States  assembled  in  con- 
vention at  Seneca  Falls  in  1848,  Pauline  Roland  and 
Madame  Moniot  publicly  claimed  their  civil  rights  in 
Paris.  Pauline  went  herself  to  the  ballot,  and,  when 
her  vote  was  refused,  published  a  protest  after  the 
fashion  of  our  tax-payers.  Very  absurd  EngUsh  so- 
ciety found  woman's  first  demand  for  the  suffrage; 
yet  what  Englishmen  refuse  contemptuously  to  give 
to  woman,  certain  men  of  the  mean  sort,  yet  calling 
themselves  respectable,  have  not  been  ashamed  in 
that  very  country  to  borrow  of  her.  Even  ''Black- 
wood" helps  out  our  argument,  when  it  says,  in 
November,  1854,  *'I  believe,  Eusebius,  I  speak  of  a 
notorious  fact,  when  I  say,  that  it  is  less  than  a  cen- 


334  THE    COURT. 

tury  since,  for  election  purposes,  parties  were  un- 
blushingly  married  in  cases  where  women  conveyed  a 
right  of  freedom,  a  political  franchise  to  their  hus- 
bands, and  parted,  after  the  election,  by  shaking  hands 
over  a  tombstone,  as  an  act  of  dissolution  of  the  con- 
tract, under  cover  of  the  words,  'Until  death  do  us 
part.'  "  *  The  men  who  looked  calmly  on  this  pro- 
fane and  absurd  fraud  may  well  dread  the  moral  in- 
fluence of  woman  on  elections.  As  to  the  historical 
argument  for  England,  ladies  of  birth  and  quality, 
we  are  told,  sat  in  council  with  the  Saxon  Witas. 
The  Abbess  Hilda  presided  in  an  ecclesiastical  coun- 
cil. ''In  Wightfred's  great  council  at  Benconceld  in 
694,"  says  Gurdon  in  his  "Antiquities  of  Parliament," 
"the  abbesses  sat  and  deliberated;  and  five  of  them 
signed  decrees  of  that  council,  with  the  king  and 
bishops:"  and  that  illuminated  prebendary  of  Sarum, 
old  Thomas  Fuller,  thus  further  chronicles  the  same 
event : — 

"A  great  council  (for  so  it  is  titled)  was  held  at  Becanceld 
(supposed  to  be  Beckingham  in  Kent)  by  Withred,  King  of  Kent, 
and  Bertuald,  Archbishop  of  Britain,  so  called  therein  (under- 
stand, him  of  Canterbury),  wherein  many  things  were  concluded 
in  favor  of  the  church.     Five    Kentish   abbesses — namely,  Mil- 


*  In  an  article  in  the  "Edinburgh  Weekly  Journal"  for  Jan.  10,  1827,  written 
by  Sir  Walter  Scott,  the  following  allusion  is  made  to  abuses  which  had  crept 
into  the  arjny  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century: — 

"To  sum  up  this  Catalogue  of  abuses,  commis.sions  were  in  some  instances 
bestowed  upon  young  ladies,  when  pensions  could  not  be  had.  We  know  our- 
selves one  fair  dame  who  drew  the  pay  of  a  captain  in  the dragoons,  and 

was  probably  not  much  less  fit  for  the  service  than  some  who  at  that  period 
actually  did  duty." 


THE    ENGLISH    COMMON    LAW.  335 

dred,  Ethelred,  iEte,  Wilnolde,  Heresinde — ^were  not  only  present, 
but  subscribed  their  names  and  crosses  to  the  constitutions  con- 
cluded therein :  and  we  may  observe,  that  their  subscriptions  are 
not  only  placed  before  and  above  all  presbyters,  but  also  above 
that  of  Botred,  a  bishop  present  in  this  great  council.  It  seems  it 
was  the  courtesy  of  England  to  allow  the  upper  hand  to  the  weaker 
sex,  as  in  their  sitting,  so  in  their  subscription." 

King  Edgar's  charter  to  the  Abbey  of  Crowland,  in 
961,  was  with  consent  of  the  nobles  and  abbesses  who 
signed  that  charter.  In  Henry  the  Third's  and  King 
Edward  the  First's  time,  four  abbesses  were  sum- 
moned to  Parliament;  namely,  of  Shaftesbury,  of 
Winchester,  of  Berking,  and  of  Wilton.  In  the 
thirty-fifth  year  of  Edward  the  Third,  were  sum- 
moned— by  writ  of  Parliament,  to  sit  in  person  or 
by  their  proxies — Mary,  Countess  of  Norfolk;  Alie- 
nor, Countess  of  Ormond;  Anna  Despenser;  Philippa, 
Countess  of  March;  Johanna  Fitzwater;  Agneta, 
Countess  of  Pembroke;  Mary  de  St.  Paul;  Mary  de 
Roos;  Matilda,  Countess  of  Oxford;  Catharine, 
Countess  of  Athol. 

As  to  the  offices  which  women  can  hold  in  Great 
Britain,  we  have  already  quoted  something  from  Mr. 
Higginson,  in  speaking  of  the  prohibitions  of  the  law. 
Lady  Packington's  estate  has  probably,  by  this  time, 
passed  into  male  hands:  so  she  elects  no  more  mem- 
bers of  Parliament.  Those  who  have  read  the  plea 
of  Lady  Alice  Lille,  when  she  was  forbidden  to  speak 
by  attorney,  will  find  no  great  difficulty  in  imagining 
that  a  woman  could  manage  a  government  debate. 


336  THE    COURT. 

Such  women  as  have  purchased  or  inherited  East- 
India  stock  have  always  had  the  privilege  of  voting 
at  the  meetings  of  the  company,  and  so  have  assisted 
to  govern  that  unhappy  country.  In  the  provincial 
English  towns,  if  I  may  judge  from  the  indirect  testi- 
mony of  novels  and  newspapers,  women  appear  to 
attend  all  stockholders'  meetings;  certainly  those  held 
by  the  banks.  In  the  United  States,  they  are  notified, 
but  not  expected  to  attend;  a  cool  kind  of  insult,  which 
I  wish  some  women  might  astonish  them  by  retaliat- 
ing. If  any  bank  Avere  established  by,  or  had  a  ma- 
jority of,  female  stockholders,  it  would  be  quite  easy 
to  notify  men,  without  expecting  them  to  attend;  and 
the  alternative  of  trusting  their  own  property  to  the 
judgment  of  women  might  possibly  open  the  eyes  of 
men  to  the  absurdity  of  the  present  custom. 

As  we  withdraw  our  eyes  from  the  past,  it  is  nat- 
ural to  inquire.  What  late  changes  have  taken  place 
in  Great  Britain?  and  what  is  the  strength  of  the 
reform  tendency?  I  have  often  said,  yet  I  must  re- 
peat it  here,  that  nothing  has  ever  promised  such  no- 
ble usefulness  for  woman,  nothing  has  ever  occurred 
to  change  the  popular  estimate  of  her  character,  in 
the  same  degree  as  the  formation  of  that  out-of-door 
Parliament, — the  Association  for  the  Advancement 
of  Social  Science.  It  offers  a  position  of  entire 
equality  to  woman.  It  encourages  her  to  express  her- 
self in  the  presence  and  w^ith  the  sympathy  of  the 
wisest  men,  and  gives  her  an  opportunity  to  speak  to 
the  actual  Parliament  through  her  own  influence  ex- 


THE    ENGLISH    COMMON   LAW.  337 

erted  on  its  best  members.  It  has  been  well  said  (I 
think,  by  Mrs.  Mill),  that  the  very  best  opportunities 
of  education  will  be  opened  to  woman  in  vain,  until 
she  is  practically  invited  to  turn  them  to  account. 
Here,  in  this  association,  is  her  first  practical  invita- 
tion in  Great  Britain.  God  grant  that  she  may  un- 
derstand the  responsibility  it  involves,  and  bear  it 
well!  But  the  formation  of  this  association  in  1857 
was  preceded  by  other  steps.  It  was  on  the  13th  of 
February,  1851,  that  a  petition  of  women,  agreed  to 
by  a  public  meeting  at  Sheffield,  and  claiming  the 
elective  franchise,  was  laid  before  the  House  of  Lords 
by  the  Earl  of  Carlisle;  and,  in  July  of  the  same  year, 
Mrs.  Mill's  admirable  article  on  the  "  Enfranchisement 
of  Women,"  now  become  commonplace  on  account  of 
the  extensive  and  thorough  use  that  has  been  made 
of  it,  appeared  in  the  "Westminster." 

The  examination  of  Florence  Nightingale  before  a 
commission  of  inquiry  bore  witness  no  less  to  the 
surpassing  ability  of  the  woman  than  to  the  increas- 
ing value  of  such  ability  to  all  governments.  In  con- 
nection with  it,  one  could  not  but  smile  at  the  distress 
felt  by  certain  journals  over  a  single  mistake  on  the 
part  of  the  lady  as  to  the  proper  title  of  a  subordi- 
nate officer. 

In  the  month  of  March,  1856,  the  "London  Times" 
published  a  petition  to  both  Houses  of  Parliament  in 
behalf  of  an  amendment  of  the  English  property-laws. 
This  petition  was  signed  by  many  women  whose 
names  are  well  known  and  dear  to  us, — by  the  late 

26 


338  THE    COURT. 

Anna  Jameson,  so  well  known  to  the  world  as  an 
accomplished  critic  in  literature  and  art;  by  the  wife 
and  sister  of  the  poet  Browning, — Elizabeth  Brown- 
ing, herself  the  first  poet  among  women,  so  far;  by 
Bessie  Raynor  Parkes  and  Matilda  Hayes,  the  editors 
of  the  "Englishwoman's  Journal,"  the  establishment 
of  which  of  itself  constitutes  an  era  in  the  progress  of 
human  thought;  by  Barbara  Bodichon,  the  well- 
known  artist;  by  Harriet  Martineau,  distinguished  in 
political  economy;  by  Mary  Howitt,  the  womanly 
story-teller  and  ballad-maker;  and  Mrs.  Gaskell,  the 
author  of  "Mary  Barton."  The  petition  was  sup- 
ported in  the  House  of  Lords  by  Lord  Brougham, 
and  in  the  House  of  Commons  by  Sir  Erskine  Perry. 
After  the  close  of  the  session  in  April,  1857,  a 
dinner  was  offered  to  Lord  Brougham  in  acknowl- 
edgment of  the  distinguished  ardor  with  which  he 
had  pressed  this  bill, — the  Married  Woman's  Prop- 
erty Act  of  1857.  This  bill  did  not  apply  to  Ireland 
or  Scotland,  nor  to  pre-existing  contracts;  that  is,  to 
marriages  solemnized  before  the  first  day  of  January, 
1858.  It  was  not  passed;  but  a  clause  for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  earnings  and  savings  of  married  women 
was  introduced  into  the  New  Divorce  Bill,  and  has 
already  proved  a  blessing  to  hundreds.  This  clause, 
however,  operates  only  in  cases  of  desertion, — a 
charge  easily  evaded.* 


*  "In  the  little  brown  duodecimo  which  contains  the  jottings  of  'that  famous 
lawyer,  William  Tothill,  Esquire,'  there  is  the  following  entry,  of  the  date  of 
James  I.: — 


THE    ENGLISH    COMMON    LAW.  339 

The  New  Divorce  Bill  passed  in  1858:  the  Divorce 
and  Matrimonial  Causes  Act  Amendment  Bill  passed 
in  July,  1858;  and  since  then,  the  Divorce  Court  Bill 
in  August,  1859;  both  of  these  last  having  been 
made  necessary  by  the  first  change  in  the  law.  It 
was  in  April,  1858,  that  Mr.  Buckle  delivered  his 
lecture  on  "Civilization;"  an  important  contribution 
to  that  estimate  of  woman,  which  is  beginning  to  act 
powerfully  on  all  legislation.  The  Law-Amendment 
Society  also  published  a  report,  urging  a  thorough 
reform  of  the  law. 

In  connection  ^vith  the  reforms  effected  in  the 
mother-country,  it  may  be  well  to  state,  that  similar 
reforms  are  being  effected  in  Canada.  Legislators 
there  turn  for  their  precedents  to  England;  but  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  agitation  in  the  United 
States  largely  contributes  towards  these  changes. 

A  Married  Woman's  Property  Act  passed  the 
Council  in  May,  1858;  but  as  these  changes  are 
still  in  progress,  and  a  progress  much  interrupted  by 
political  fluctuations,  it  seems  hardly  worth  while  to 
enter  into  their  details. 

In  one  respect,  the  statutes  of  Canada  are  marked 
by  a  singular  inconsistency.  They  record  the  only 
instance,  within  my  knowledge,  in  which  a  govern- 
ment distinctly  forbids  women  to  vote;  and  almost 


*'  'Fleshward  contra  Jackson.  Money  given  to  a  feme  covert  for  her  main- 
tenance, because  her  husband  is  an  unthrift.  The  husband  pretends  that  the 
money  should  be  his;  but  the  court  ordered  the  money  to  be  at  her  own  dispo- 
sal.'"— "London  Qtiarterly,  July,  1861.  A  very  ancient  germ  of  a  "Married 
Woman's  Property  Law." 


340  '  THE    COURT. 

the  only  instance  of  a  government  conferring  that 
right,  even  to  a  limited  extent.  In  the  twelfth  year 
of  Victoria,  the  Canadian  Government  passed  a  stat- 
ute in  these  words:  "No  woman  is  or  shall  he  en- 
titled to  vote  at  any  election  for  any  electoral  division 
whatever."  What  spasm  of  autocratic  terror,  what 
momentary  rebellion  against  their  liege  lady,  inspired 
this  act,  we  are  left  uninformed.  For  the  most  part, 
in  all  countries,  women  wait  to  be  told  that  they  may 
vote;  and  their  ineligibility  is  decided  by  the  intro- 
duction of  the  word  ''male,"  or  the  popular  construc- 
tion of  the  word  "citizen,"  which,  it  is  quite  evident, 
does  not  mean  a  woman.  But  it  was  in  Canada  also 
that  a  distinct  electoral  privilege  was  conferred  by 
intention  in  1850;  an  intention,  however,  which  indi- 
cated no  enlargement  of  views,  nor  desire  of  reform, 
nor  recognition  of  woman  at  her  human  value:  it 
was  simply  an  intention  on  the  part  of  the  Protestants 
to  secure  a  Httle  more  political  power.  Not  humane, 
then,  but  interested  motives  dictated  the  omission  of 
the  word  "male"  in  that  section  of  the  statues  which 
provides  for  the  election  of  school  trustees.  It  was 
desired  thus  to  bring  the  influence  of  female  property- 
holders  and  Protestants  to  check  the  Roman-Catholic 
demand  for  separate  schools.  Three  things  made  it 
easy  for  Canadian  women  to  vote  under  this  pro- 
vision:— 

1st,  The  great  degree  of  individual  independence 
seen  everywhere  in  EngHsh-born  women,  as  com- 
pared with  American. 


THE   ENGLISH   COMMON   LAW.  341 

2d,  The  respect  felt,  in  all  countries  where  distinc- 
tions of  rank  exist,  for  the  mere  property-holder. 

3d,  The  political  excitement  of  the  local  Protestant 
Church,  which  sustained  them  to  the  uttermost. 

They  have  voted  for  ten  years;  and  a  four-years' 
residence  among  them  was  sufficient  to  convince  me, 
that  no  greater  derangement  to  society  would  occur 
if  the  full  right  were  conferred.  In  connection  with 
English  government  and  EngUsh  colonies,  I  ought  to 
speak  of  the  government  of  Pitcairn's  Island.  It  was 
the  mutinous  crew  of  his  majesty's  ship  "Bounty" 
that  settled  Pitcairn's  Island.  Adams,  the  boatswain, 
was  the  father  of  the  little  community,  and  drew  up 
the  simple  code  of  laws  by  which  the  islanders  are 
still  governed.  On  Christmas  Day,  a  magistrate  and 
councillor  are  elected  for  the  ensuing  year;  men 
and  women  over  sixteen  being  allowed  to  vote.  The 
women  assist  in  the  cultivation  of  the  ground,  and 
take  no  inconsiderable  share  in  the  municipal  debates. 
The  fate  of  this  experiment  is  not  yet  decided;  sol 
have  thought  it  worth  while  to  preserve  the  statement. 
You  will  have  already  seen,  that  in  England,  as  else- 
where, so  long  as  the  right  of  suffrage  depended  upon 
possession  of  property,  upon  hard  pieces  of  eight,  or 
broad  acres  of  land,  there  was  no  dispute  of  woman's 
privilege.  It  is  no  new  thing  for  woman  to  vote  in 
England:  it  is  a  very  old  thing.  It  is  only  a  ques- 
tion whether  she  shall  vote  upon  the  ground  of  her 
humanity. 


342  THE    COURT. 


III. 

THE  UNITED-STATES  LAW,  AND  SOME  THOUGHTS  ON 
HUMAN  RIGHTS. 

"Men  often  think  to  bring  about  great  results  by  violent  and 
unprepared  effort;  but  it  is  only  in  fair  and  forecast  order, 'as 
the  earth  bringeth  forth  her  bud,'  that  righteousness  and  praise 
may  spring  forth  before  the  nations." — John  Ruskin. 

IN  passing  last  to  the  United  States  of  America, 
one  is  tempted  to  ask,  with  Anna  Brewster  when 
rehearsing  the  hardships  of  Helvetian  women,  ''Can 
it  be  true,  as  the  advocates  of  despotic  government 
often  say,  that  under  no  government  are  women  so 
harshly  treated,  so  stripped  of  all  independent  rights, 
as  under  a  republic?  In  republican  Helvetia,  the 
Vaudois  peasant  woman  leaves  all  household  care,  to 
stand,  spring,  summer,  and  autumn,  in  her  vineyard; 
but  not  a  bunch  of  grapes  can  she  gather  for  the 
market,  without  her  husband's  leave.  He  may  have 
loitered  and  smoked  through  every  sunny  day,  while 
she  has  dug  and  dressed  and  watered;  but  she  may 
not  sell  one  grape  to  buy  bread  for  her  children." 

And  this  is  a  picturesque  statement  of  the  English 
common  law,  on  which  the  common  law  of  the 
United  States  still  rests  in  the  main,  and  on  which  it 
has  rested  entirely  until  within  the  last  ten  years. 

A  few  passages  from  Chancellor  Kent  will  indi- 
cate,— 


THE    UNITED-STATES    LAW.  343 

I.  The  estimate  of  woman  formed  by  this  law,  arid 
the  property-laws  built  upon  this  estimate. 

II.  The  laws  which  regulate  divorce.  We  shall 
have  to  consider, — 

III.  Woman's  general  civil  position;  and, — 

IV.  The  right  of  suffrage. 

Fortunately  for  us,  Chancellor  Kent  talks  plain 
Enghsh.  He  tells  us  exactly  what  the  law  means, 
and  sets  it  forth  as  if  it  were  written  to  be  under- 
stood; which  is  not  exactly  the  case  with  all  his 
predecessors. 

As  to  the  estimate  of  woman  on  which  the  laws 
ar^  based,  we  have,  in  connection  with  what  we  have 
already  quoted  from  English  law-books,  the  following 
statement : — 

"But  as  the  husband  is  the  guardian  of  the  wife,  and  bound 
to  protect  and  maintain  her,  the  law  has  given  him  a  reasonable 
superiority  and  control  over  her  person;  and  he  may  even  put 
gentle  restraints  upon  her  liberty,  if  her  conduct  be  such  as  to 
require  it.  The  husband  is  the  best  judge  of  the  wants  of  the 
family,  and  the  means  of  supplying  them;  and,  if  he  shifts  his 
domicile,  the  wife  is  bound  to  follow  him." — Rentes  Commen- 
taries, vol.  ii.  p.  180. 

The  best  comment  on  this  is  found,  I  think,  in  a 
story  told  by  Mrs.  Stowe,  who  says  that  she  once  saw 
a  little  hut  perched  on  a  barren  ledge  of  the  Alps,  out 
of  reach  of  human  help,  and  without  pasture;  but  a 
Uttle  below  it  were  stretches  of  sweet  Alpine  grass, 
inviting  to  eye  and  foot,  and  capable  of  affording  sus- 
tenance to  goats  and  sheep.     ''How  long  have  you 


344  THE    COURT. 

lived  here?"  asked  Mrs.  Stowe  of  the  old  woman. 
"Above  forty  years." — "And  what  made  you  come 
so  far  up?  Don't  you  Hke  the  meadow?" — "I  don't 
know,"  was  the  reply:  "it  was  the  man's  notion^' 

It  is  somewhat  questionable,  whether  this  man 
would  be  the  best  judge  of  the  wants  of  his  family. 
Chancellor  Kent  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding;  as 
also  what  might  be  his  idea  of  "gentle  restraint,"  in 
case  the  wife  had  refused  "to  shift  her  domicile."  As 
to  property,  Kent  proceeds: — 

The  general  rule  is,  that  the  husband  becomes  enti- 
tled, on  the  marriage,  to  all  the  goods  and  chattels  of 
the  wife,  and  to  the  rents  and  profits  of  her  lands; 
and  he  becomes  liable  to  pay  her  debts  and  perform 
her  contracts. 

1.  If  the  wife  have  an  inheritance  in  land,  he  takes 
the  rents  and  profits  during  their  joint  lives.  He 
may  sue  in  his  own  name  for  an  injury  to  the  profits 
of  the  land;  but,  if  the  husband  himself  chooses  to 
commit  waste,  the  wife  has  no  redress  at  common 
law. 

2.  If  the  wife,  at  the  time  of  her  marriage,  hath  an 
estate  for  her  life,  the  husband  becomes  seized  of 
such  an  estate,  and  is  entitled  to  the  profits  during 
marriage. 

3.  The  husband  also  becomes  possessed  of  the 
chattels  real  of  the  wife;  and  the  law  gives  him 
power,  without  her  consent,  to  sell,  assign,  mortgage, 
or  otherwise  dispose  of,  the  same  as  he  pleases. 
Such  chattels  real  are  liable  to  be  sold  on  execution 


THE    UNITED-STATES   LAW.  345 

for  his  debts  (vol.  ii.  p.  133).  If  he  survive  his  wife, 
the  law  gives  him  her  chattels  real  by  survivorship. 

4.  If  debts  are  due  to  the  wife  before  marriage, 
and  are  recovered  by  the  husband  afterward,  the 
money  becomes,  in  most  cases,  absolutely  his  own. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  husband  is,— 

1st,  Obliged  to  provide  for  his  wife  out  of  his  for- 
tune, or  her  own  that  he  has  taken  into  his  custody, 
of  what  the  court  calls  "necessaries," — these  again, 
of  course,  to  be  dependent  on  the  '^man's  notion'' I 
and, — 

2d,  Becomes  liable  for  her  frauds  and  torts  during 
coverture, — the  law  understanding,  as  well  as  a  mer- 
chant, that  it  is  useless  to  "sue  a  broken  bench." 

The  indulgence  of  the  law  toward  the  wife,,  we  are 
then  told,  is  founded  on  the  idea  of  force  exercised 
by  the  husband;  a  presumption  only,  which  may  be 
repelled.  What  this  indulgence  is,  we  may  well  be 
puzzled  to  guess,  unless  the  phrase  indicate  that  she 
is  not  to  be  prosecuted  for  theft,  where  both  are  guilty; 
and  yet,  if  the  presumption  that  he  compelled  her  to 
steal  be  repelled,  she  may  be  prosecuted,  and  found 
guilty. 

A  wife  cannot  devise  her  lands  by  will;  nor  can  she 
make  a  testament  of  chattels,  except  it  be  of  those 
which  she  holds  en  autre  droit,  without  the  license  of 
her  husband.  It  is  not  strictly  a  will,  then,  only  an 
appointment,  which  the  husband  is  bound  to  allow 
(vol.  ii.  p.  170). 

The  laws  are  essentially  the  same  in  Pennsylvania, 


346  THE    COURT. 

Virginia,  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Kentucky, 
and  New  York;  in  the  latter  State,  of  course,  only 
as  applicable  to  marriages  contracted  before  the  pas- 
sage of  the  new  bill.  It  is  the  same  in  all  the  States, 
with  one  or  two  Western  exceptions;  because  the 
passage  of  a  new  law  never  annuls  pre-existing  con- 
tracts. In  consequence,  practice  becomes  contra- 
dictory and  intricate;  and  most  lawyers  not  only  feel, 
but  show,  a  great  dislike  to  new  laws  on  that  ac- 
count. 

In  regard  to  marriage  and  divorce,  Kent  says  that 
the  English  practice  was,  not  to  grant  divorce  for 
unfaithfulness  on  the  part  of  the  husband,  and  the 
early  settlers  of  Massachusetts  made  the  same  dis- 
tinction, creating  a  difference  at  the  very  outset  in  the 
moral  responsibility  of  the  two,  fatal  alike  to  happi- 
ness and  civilization. 

In  1840,  the  policy  of  South  Carolina  continued  so 
strict,  that  there  had  been  no  instance,  since  the  Revo- 
lution, of  a  divorce  pronounced  by  a  court  of  justice, 
or  an  act  of  the  legislature. 

In  Massachusetts,  the  law  was,  that  divorce  could 
only  he  had  for  criminality.  In  Vermont,  New  Jersey, 
Kentucky,  Mississippi,  and  Michigan,  divorce  from 
"bed  and  board"  may  be  had  for  extreme  cruelty; 
and,  in  Michigan,  for  wilful  desertion  for  three 
years. 

In  Indiana,  it  is  rendered  for  any  cause,  at  the  judg- 
ment of  the  court. 

In  Illinois,  divorce  may  be  had  for  the  usual  causes. 


THE   UNITED-STATES   LAW.  347 

and  for  drunkenness  or  cruelty,  or  such  other  cause  as 
the  court  shall  think  right;  and,  in  such  cases,  the 
wife  does  not  lose  her  dower.  These  differences  in 
statute  law  indicate,  one  would  think,  a  variety  suffi- 
cient to  test  in  time  all  the  theories  of  reformers  and 
experimentalists. 

As  to  the  consistency  of  the  law,  Poynter  says, — 

"  It  is  singular  to  see  a  marriage  annulled  on  account  of  the  mis- 
spelling or  suppressing  of  a  name,  which  would  be  held  valid 
against  the  lasting  misery  of  the  parties." 

By  cruelty  is  meant  "reasonable  apprehension  of 
bodily  hurt."  Mere  austerity  of  temper,  petulance 
of  manners,  rudeness  of  language,  a  want  of  civil 
attention,  even  occasional  salUes  of  passion,  do  not 
amount  to  that  cruelty  which  the  law  can  relieve. 
The  wife  must  disarm  her  husband  by  the  weapons  of 
kindness! 

I  have  shown  you  upon  what  estimate  the  general 
common  law  of  the  United  States  is  based,  as  regards 
both  property  and  divorce.  It  is  needless  to  say  that 
this  estimate  is  very  little  to  be  preferred  to  that  of 
older  countries;  but,  when  the  reformers  of  our  cause 
are  tauntingly  asked  what  good  they  have  done,  they 
may  reply  proudly,  though  they  should  point  to  the 
changes  of  legislation  during  the  last  ten  years  alone. 
Since  1850,  the  laws  have  been  changed  in  at  least 
nineteen  States.  The  credit  of  this  change  should 
certainly  rest  with  the  men  and  women  of  this  reform ; 
for,  in  every  State,  its  sympathizing  friends  helped  to 
frame  the  new  laws. 


348  THE    COURT. 

Whether  justly  or  not,  Rhode  Island  claims  the 
honor  of  leading  the  way  in  such  changes.  In  1844, 
the  Hon.  Wilkins  Updike  introduced  a  bill  into  her 
legislature,  securing  to  married  women  their  property 
under  certain  regulations.  The  step  was  in  the  right 
direction.  In  1847,  Vermont  passed  similar  enact- 
ments. In  1848-9,  Connecticut,  New  York,  and 
Texas  followed;  in  1850,  Alabama;  in  1853,  New 
Hampshire.  In  1855,  Massachusetts  passed  an  act 
of  a  still  more  comprehensive  kind.  It  was  essentially 
the  same  as  that  introduced  into  her  Senate,  in  1852, 
by  the  Hon.  S.  E.  Sewall.  It  was  not  wholly  satis- 
factory to  those  who  prepared  it,  but  was  the  best  it 
was  thought  possible  to  pass.*     In  1856  and  1857, 


*A  law,  apparently  favorable  to  all  widows,  passed  the  Massachusetts 
Legislature  at  the  last  session.  It  seems  to  me,  however,  to  bear  the  marks 
of  a  law  passed  for  a  special  case.  I  have  made  several  applications  in  the 
proper  quarters  for  information  concerning  it,  but  have  received  nothing  in 
return. 
Chap.  164. — An  Act  concerning  the  Provisions  for  Widows    in   certain 

Cases. 
Be  it  enacted,-  &c.,  as  follows: — 

Sect.  1. — When  a  man  dies,  having  lawfully  disposed  of  his  estate  by  will 
and  leaving  a  widow,  she  may,  at  any  time  within  six  months  after  the  probate 
of  the  will,  file  in  the  probate-office,  in  writing,  her  waiver  of  the  provisions 
made  for  her  in  the  will,  and  shall,  in  such  case,  be  entitled  to  such  portion  of 
his  real  and  personal  estate  as  she  would  have  been  entitled  to  if  her  husband 
had  died  intestate:  provided,  however,  that,  if  the  share  of  the  personal  estate  to 
which  she  would  thus  become  entitled  shall  exceed  the  sum  of  ten  thousand 
dollars,  she  shall,  in  such  case,  be  entitled  to  receive  in  her  own  right  the  said 
amount  of  ten  thousand  dollars,  and  to  receive  the  income  only  of  the  excess 
of  said  share  above  said  sum  of  ten  thousand  dollars  during  her  natural  life. 
If  she  makes  no  such  waiver,  she  shall  not  be  endowed  of  his  lands,  unless  it 
plainly  appears  by  the  will  to  have  been  the  intention  of  the  testator  that  she 
should  have  such  provisions  in  addition  to  her  dower. 

Sect.  2. — Upon  application,  made  by  the  widow  or  anyone  interested  in  the 
estate,  the  judge  of  probate  may  appoint  one  or  more  trustees,  to  receive,  hold, 
and  manage,  during  the  lifetime  of  the  widow,  the  portion  of  the  personal  estate 


THE    UNITED-STATES   LAW.  349 

the  Legislatures  of  Kentucky,  Missouri,  Indiana, 
Ohio,  Rhode  Island,  and  Maine,  altered  their  property- 
laws, — Rhode  Island  advancing  somewhat  on  her 
first  step.*  Wisconsin  and  Iowa  have  followed;  and 
it  is  not  likely  that  any  new  States,  unless  they  should 
be  slave  States,  will  repeat  the  old  barbarisms. 

I  have  given  Rhode  Island  the  precedence  she 
claims;  but  there  are  certain  statutes  of  the  State 
of  lUinois,  as  early  in  date  as  January,  1829,  which 


of  her  deceased  husband,  exceeding  ten  thousand  dollars,  of  which  she  is  entitled 
to  receive  under  this  act. 

Sect.  3. — The  twenty-fouth  section  of  the  ninety-second  chapter  of  the  General 
Statutes  is  hereby  repealed. 

Approved  April  9,  1861. 

In  a  case  on  trial  in  the  Superior  Court  to-day  (Oct.  3,  1861) ,  Chief -Justice 
Allen  ruled,  that  the  law  of  1855,  allowing  married  women  to  do  business  on 
their  own  account,  separate  and  apart  from  their  husbands,  did  not  exclude 
them  from  entering  into  business-partnerships  with  men  other  than  their  hus- 
bands. 

*On  the  7th  of  April,  1861,  the  Ohio  Legislature  passed  a  bill  concerning 
the  Rights  and  Liabilities  of  Married  Women. 

Sect.  1  conveys  the  impression,  that  all  married  women  may  control  their 
rents  and  issues  of  real  estate  belonging  to  them  at  marriage,  or  separately 
received  after. 

Sect.  5,  however,  says  "that  this  law  shall  not  afifect  any  rights  which  may 
have  become  vested  in  any  person  at  the  time  of  its  taking  effect;"  which,  of 
course,  cuts  off  from  its  beneficial  results  all  persons  previously  married. 

It  seems  a  perfectly  simple  matter  to  a  woman  to  obviate  the  diflBculties  and 
disappointments  which  arise  in  this  way. 

Let  parties  married  under  the  old  law,  but  desiring  to  benefit  by  the  new, 
go  before  a  magistrate,  and  state  their  wish;  and  then  let  the  decision  in  their 
favor  be  published  in  the  regular  way. 

Such  a  method  would  not  benefit  parties  at  variance;  but  it  would  benefit  a 
large  class  of  women  engaged,  or  desiring  to  engage,  in  independent  business. 

The  Ohio  law  repeals  a  former  law  of  1857,  which  secured  to  all  married 
women  the  control  of  the  sale  or  the  disposal  of  personal  property  exempt  from 
execution:  so  its  benefits  are  of  a  nature  by  no  means  unmixed. 


350  THE    COURT. 

deserve  to  be  alluded  to,  on  account  of  their  un- 
usual liberality. 

If  married,  and  over  the  age  of  eighteen  years,  a 
woman  in  Illinois  may,  in  spite  of  her  husband,  de- 
vise her  real  estate,  and  bequeath  her  personal  estate, 
to  any  one  for  ever. 

The  wife  may  administer  on  her  deceased  husband's 
estate,  in  preference  to  all  others,  if  she  apply  within 
sixty  days.  On  her  husband's  death,  she  inherits  one- 
half  of  his  real  estate  in  fee-simple,  absolute;  and  the 
whole  of  his  personal  estate,  with  her  rights  of  dower 
in  addition. 

The  wife  has  not  legally  the  first  title  to  the  guar- 
dianship of  her  child  on  the  demise  of  her  husband; 
but  she  has  it  by  a  kind  of  comity,  the  consent  of  pub- 
lic opinion  and  the  courts. 

In  reference  to  the  wife's  inheriting  from  the  hus- 
band, my  correspondent,  the  Hon.  WilHam  H.  Hern- 
don,  says, — 

"You  will  perceive  a  difference  in  the  two  sections  relating 
to  the  wife  and  husband  as  inheriting  from  one  another,  favorable 
to  the  wife  apparently.  In  the  twenty-second  section  you  will 
find,  that,  in  case  of  the  wife's  death  without  children,  the  hus- 
band inherits  one-half  of  her  real  estate  in  fee-simple,  absolute; 
but  nothing  is  said  about  her*  personal.  This  is  because  the  com- 
mon law  has  already  given  him  her  personal  estate  on  her  mar- 
riage." 

So  we  see  that  the  State  of  Illinois  did  not  quite 
divest  itself  of  the  barbarisms  of  the  common  law. 
In  a  later  letter,  Mr.  Herndon  continues: — 


THE    UNITED-STATES    LAW.  351 

"Our  Illinois  Legislature  has  this  winter  (1860-61)  enacted  a. 
law,  allowing  women  (married  women)  all  their  property, — real, 
personal,  mixed, — free  from  all  debt,  contract,  obligation,  and 
control  of  their  husbands.  This  law  puts  man  and  woman  in 
the  same  position,  as  far  as  property-rights  and  their  remedies 
are  concerned.  This  is  right, — just  as  it  should  be.  For  my 
life,  I  cannot  see  why  there  should  be  any  distinction  between 
men  and  women,  when  we  speak  of  rights  under  government. 
A  woman's  rights  are  identical  with  a  man's.  Where  he  is  hmited,. 
she  should  be;  where  she  is  limited,  he  should  be." 

In  Rhode  Island,  the  civil  existence  of  the  husband 
and  wife  is  but  one;  and,  though  the  letter  of  the 
law  considers  her  property  acquired  by  trade  or  in- 
heritance as  technically  her  own,  still  it  is  no  longer 
under  her  single  control.  If,  as  a  wife,  she  sells  mer- 
chandise, the  buyer  becomes  a  debtor  to  her  husband 
and  herself.  If  she  makes  a  purchase,  her  note  is  good 
for  nothing,  unless  her  husband's  signature  is  affixed 
to  it.  He  can  dispose  of  the  whole  of  her  personal 
estate,  unless  the  buyer  has  been  previously  notified 
by  her,  in  writing,  that  the  property  is  exclusively  her 
own.  Her  real  estate  the  husband  cannot  sell:  but 
even  of  this  she  cannot  dispose  by  will;  so,  perhaps, 
it  might  as  well  be  sold.  The  absurdity  becomes 
ludicrous,  when  we  remember  that  the  law  makes  her 
competent  to  devise  any  number  of  miUions,  so  long 
as  it  is  invested  in  bank-stock  or  merchandise. 

In  the  State  of  Vermont,  there  are  three  pecufiar 
provisions : — 

First,  If  the  husband  abscond  without  making  suf- 


352  THE    COURT. 

ficient  provision  for  his  wife,  she  is  permitted  (!)  to  use 
her  own  property  and  earnings,  or  the  earnings  of 
her  minor  children,  to  secure  a  support.  This  permis- 
sion indicates  the  tender  mercies  of  the  common  law, 
and  reminds  us  of  the  Helvetian  peasant-woman. 

Second,  She  is  exempted  from  personal  restraint 
during  the  pendency  of  a  divorce  suit. 

Third,  A  mother  and  her  illegitimate  child  may 
inherit  from  each  other. 

A  married  woman  may  devise  her  real  estate,  and 
it  is  exempt  from  attachment  for  the  sole  debts  of  her 
husband.  She  may  have  her  husband's  life  insured, 
the  insurance  to  be  made  payable  to  her  or  her  chil- 
dren. If  he  should  be  put  into  the  penitentiary,  she 
may  transact  business  as  if  she  were  a /erne  sole. 

The  laws  of  inheritance  are  liberal;  and  the  com- 
mon law  prevails  by  statute,  when  not  repugnant  to 
any  recorded  statute. 

In  Connecticut,  in  1855,  all  the  real  estate  owned 
at  the  time  of  marriage,  or  subsequently  inherited  by 
the  wife,  rests  absolutely  in  her.  All  her  personal 
estate  passes  to  her  husband;  but  all  that  she  may 
afterward  receive  remains  in  her  right,  her  husband 
being  only  her  legal  trustee.  Her  earnings  are  sub- 
ject to  his  trusteeship,  and  nothing  more.  She  is  the 
guardian  of  her  own  children;  and  the  court  always 
confirms  this  right,  .unless  she  is  incapacitated.  In 
case  of  divorce,  the  father  is  entitled  to  the  children, 
unless  objection  is  made.  On  the  decease  of  the  hus- 
band childless,  one-half  of  his  personal  estate  goes  to 


THE   UNITED-STATES   LAW.  353 

the  wife,  and  a  life-interest  in  one-third  of  the  real; 
or  the  whole,  if  it  be  needed  for  her  support. 

In  New  Hampshire,  the  common  law  prevails  for 
the  most  part.  What  express  enactments  she  passed 
in  1853  seem  to  refer  rather  to  making  the  position  of 
a  deserted  wife  equivalent  to  that  of  a  feme  sole  than 
any  thing  else. 

As  regards  Massachusetts,  it  is  common  to  say  that 
the  legislation  of  1855  leaves  very  little  to  be  desired^> 
beside  the  right  of  suffrage;  but  a  keen  eye  still  de- 
tects more  than  one  shortcoming.  The  custody  of  the 
wife's  person  still  vests  in  the  husband. 

With  reference  to  the  guardianship  of  children,  the 
custom  is  in  advance  of  the  law;  while  her  power  to 
make  a  will  is  so  carefully  guarded,  that  it  might  as 
well  be  surrendered. 

A  married  woman  in  Massachusetts  can  make  no 
contract  to  bind  her,  except  one  strictly  relating  to  her 
trade,  business,  or  property.     She  cannot,  for  instance, 
indorse  a  note,  or  be  a  surety  for  another  person  in- 
any  way. 

In  Maine,  since  1857,  a  wife  may  hold  the  wages 
of  her  own  labor. 

In  Ohio,  at  the  same  date,  the  law  gave  this  right 
only  under  conditions.  Long  before  any  such  changes 
took  place,  however,  the  current  of  public  opinion 
often  forced  courts  to  decide  against  the  common  law, 
and  in  accordance  with  equity, — equity  not  techni- 
cally, but  divinely,  considered. 

Judge  Graham,  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  in 

27 


354  THE    COURT. 

Perry  County,  Penn.,  made  such  a  decision  in  a  suit 
where  a  wife  claimed  return  of  earnings  loaned  by  her 
to  her  husband,  and  accumulated  after  marriage. 
The  legal  question  brought  before  Judge  Graham 
was,  "Can  a  wife  maintain  a  suit  against  her  hus- 
band?" He  decided  that  she  could  legally  hold  him 
to  a  contract  of  the  kind  under  consideration;  and  a 
verdict  was  rendered  for  the  woman,  in  the  sum  of 
$2,508. 

In  August,  1859,  Mrs.  Dorr  put  in  a  claim  for 
$40,000  on  her  husband's  estate,  in  the  Court  of 
Insolvency  in  Worcester  County.  The  court  objected 
to  entertaining  the  claim  until  after  the  choice  of  an 
assignee.  The  hearing  was  never  completed;  some 
private  adjustment  taking  its  place.  The  claim  was 
said  to  be  the  first  of  the  kind  in  the  Commonwealth. 

We  come  now  to  the  consideration  of  the  Property 
Bill,  passed  in  the  spring  of  1860  by  the  State  of 
New  York.  Not  only  as  the  latest  act  of  specific 
legislation,  but  as  the  most  complete  provision  ever 
made  by  any  government  to  outwit  the  common  law, 
it  demands  our  attention.  After  it  was  passed,  a  de- 
ficiency relating  to  the  rights  of  guardianship  was 
discovered,  and  a  supplement  was  added.  By  these 
two  acts,  the  "New  York  Tribune''  tells  us  that 
at  least  five  thousand  women  in  that  State  are 
redeemed  from  pauperism,  and  established  in  peaceful 
homes. 

But  the  supplement  bears  on  one  important  point, 
which  should  be  alluded  to.     According  to  the  com- 


THE    UNITED-STATES   LAW.  355 

mon  law,  as  I  showed  in  referring  to  England,  a 
daughter  owes  service  07ily  to  her  father.  The  moth- 
er, who  bore  and  nursed  her;  who  has  trained  her  up, 
it  may  be  by  painful  sacrifices,  to  habits  of  propriety 
and  thrift, — has  no  claim  upon  her  service,  even  in 
her  minority.  By  conferring  on  the  mother,  in  case 
of  the  father's  decease,  all  the  rights,  remedies,  privi- 
leges, and  responsibilities  in  law  appertaining  to  the 
father,  the  new  act  meets  the  difficulty. 

Before  quitting  the  subject,  we  cannot  refrain  from 
alluding  to  the  fact,  that,  as  early  as  1849,  the  State 
of  New  York  had  passed  a  quaUfied  measure  in  re- 
gard to  property;  and  directing  your  attention  to  the 
manifest  truth,  that  every  imperfect  act  of  legislation 
constitutes  a  new  set  of  exceptions  to  general  rules, 
and  very  undesirably  complicates  legal  practice. 

If  reforms  are  not  to  be  unpopular,  they  should  be 
simple  and  complete.* 

In  commenting  on  the  passage  of  these  bills,  advo- 
cated by  Mrs.  Stanton  before  the  committees  of  the 
Assembly  and  the  Senate,  the  "New  York  Tribune" 
says,— 

"Mrs.  Stanton  talked  forcibly.  It  is  needless  for  me  to  say 
that  she  talked  earnestly  of  woman's  sufferings,  sweetly  of  her 
endurance,  eloquently  of  her  rights.  When  she  tasted  of  her 
right  to  be  protected  in  the  enjoyment  of  her  p;roperty,  of  her 
right  to  be  released  from  the  bondage  of  an  ill-assorted  marriage, 
she  was  hstened  to  with  marked  favor.  She  pleaded  these  de- 
mands with  the  feeling  of  a  true  woman;  and  she  carried  the  con- 

*  See  note,  page  349. 


356  THE    COURT. 

viction,  that  she  was  not  asking  more  than  poUoy,  as  well  as 
justice,  demanded  should  be  conceded.  When  she  claimed  that 
her  voice  should  be  heard  on  the  hustings,  and  her  vote  be  re- 
ceived at  the  ballot-box,  she  was  earnest  and  eloquent  and  plau- 
sible; but  she  must  have  felt  that  she  was  not  convincing  her 
audience,  and  she  did  not." 

Here  the  single  word  plausible  vitiates,  as  cunning 
reporters  well  know  how  to  do,  the  whole  effect  of  the 
sentence.  Far  more  reasonably,  the  "  Tribune ' '  might 
have  said  she  was  earnest,  eloquent,  and  sensible ;  and 
so  have  spurred  its  readers  to  thought  instead  of  ridi- 
cule. His  criticism,  however,  Jaunches  fairly  our  last 
subject  of  discussion.  It  is  needless  to  say,  that  no- 
where in  the  United  States  has  woman  the  full  power 
of  suffrage. 

In  New  Jersey,  women  formerly  possessed,  and  often 
exercised,  this  right.  By  the  Constitution,  adopted 
July  2,  1776,  the  privilege  of  voting  was  accorded  to 
all  inhabitants,  of  full  age  and  clear  estate,  who  had 
resided  for  a  certain  time  in  the  country,  and  who 
had  fifty  dollars  in  proclamation-money. 

In  1790,  a  Quaker  member  of  the  Assembly  had 
the  act  so  drawn  as  to  read  ''he  or  she."  Until  1807, 
women  often  voted,  especially  in  times  of  great  poUti- 
cal  excitement;  at  such  times,  for  the  most  part, 
"under  influence,"  we  may  presume.  Many  voted  in 
the  presidential  contest  of  1800;  and  a  newspaper  of 
that  period  thanks  them  for  unanimously  supporting 
John  Adams  in  opposition  to  Jefferson.  So  they 
were  supposed,  at  times,  to  act  independently.     At 


THE    UNITED-STATES   LAW.  357 

an  election  in  Hunterdon  County  in  1802,  the  ballots 
of  some  colored  women  elected  a  member  of  the  legis- 
lature. Probably  this  fact,  by  stimulating  the  local 
prejudice  against  color,  and  the  fading-out  of  all  aris- 
tocratic distinctions,  which  left  no  property  qualifica- 
tions on  the  statute-book,  led  to  a  change;  for,  in 
1807,  an  act  was  passed,  limiting  the  right  of  suffrage 
to  "free  white  male  citizens  of  twenty-one  years."* 

In  later  times,  committees  of  intelligent  men,  in 
Wisconsin,  Michigan,  and  Ohio,  have  reported  in  fa- 
vor of  granting  to  women  the  right  of  suffrage;  but 
the  question  was  lost  in  the  ballot  which  followed. 

If  the  constitution  prepared  for  Kansas  should  be 
accepted  by  the  people,  single  women  will  be  empow- 
ered to  vote  there.  In  Nebraska,  the  lower  house 
passed  a  vote,  conferring  the  privilege;  but  it  was  too 
late  in  the  session  for  the  question  to  come  before  the 
upper  branch. 

In  1858,  a  proposition  to  amend  the  Constitution 
of  the  State  of  Connecticut,  so  as  to'  extend  the 
franchise  to  women,  received  eighty-two  votes  in  the 
House  of  Representatives.  It  was  defeated  by  a  ma- 
jority of  forty- five.  In  1852,  the  Kentucky  Legisla- 
ture, in  providing  for  the  election  of  school-trustees, 
enacted  that  "any  widow,  having  a  child  between 
six  and  eighteen  years,  may  vote  in  person  or  by 
proxy." 

A  provision  thus  limited  by  public  opinion  and 
prejudice  would  probably  have  very  little  force.     I 

*  See  Appendix. 


358  ^  THE    COURT. 

have  understood  that  such  a  provision  has  taken 
effect  in  some  parts  of  Michigan,  and  it  has  also  been 
recommended  to  the  State. of  Massachusetts.  Very- 
early  in  the  history  of  our  government,  its  inconsist- 
encies became  a  matter  of  comment  among  women 
^  themselves.  How  could  it  be  otherwise?  How  can 
^  she  be  said  to  have  a  right  to  life,  who  has  never  con- 
sented to  the  laws  which  may  deprive  her  of  it,  who 
is  steadily  refused  a  trial  by  her  peers,  who  has  no 
voice  in  the  election  of  her  judges?  How  can  she  be 
said  to  have  a  right  to  liberty^  whose  person,  if  not 
yet  in  custody,  almost  inevitably  becomes  so  on  her 
maturity,  who  does  not  own  her  earnings,  who  can 
make  no  valid  contract,  and  is  taxed  without  repre- 
sentation? How  can  that  woman  be  said  to  possess 
either  the  right  or  the  reality  of  happiness,  who  is 
deprived  of  the  custody  of  her  own  person,  of  the 
guardianship  of  her  children,  of  the  right  to  devise  or 
{Share  her  property? 

The  government  is  tyrannical  which  leaves  a  single 
citizen  in  this  predicament.  What  is  to  be  said  of  a 
government  which  enforces  it  upon  half  its  subjects? 

It  is  not  strange  then,  that,  half  in  jest,  half  in 
earnest,  the  wife  of  John  Adams  wrote  to  him  in 
1776  to  ask  if  it  "were  generous  in  American  men  to 
claim  absolute  power  over  wives  at  a  moment  when 
they  were  emancipating  the  whole  earth."  Nor  was 
it  strange,  that,  in  a  more  serious  mood,  Hannah 
Corbin  of  Virginia  should  write  to  her  brother,  Rich- 
ard Henry  Lee,  on  the  same  subject. 


THE    UNITED-STATES   LAW.  359 

The  American  Colonies  were  struggling  against 
the  mother-country,  on  the  ground  that  taxation  and 
representation  should  be  inseparable. 

The  ''National  Intelligencer"  has  to  confess,  when 
it  tells  the  story,  that  it  was  not  strange  if  ''strong- 
minded"  women  of  that  era,  finding  themselves  taxed, 
should  wonder  why  they  could  not  vote. 

Mr,  Lee  wrote  from  Chantilly  in  reply,  March  17, 
1778:— 

"I  do  not  see,"  he  says,  "that  any  thing  prevents  widows,  hav- 
ing large  property,  from  voting,  notwithstanding  it  has  never 
been  the  case  either  here  or  in  England.  Perhaps  it  was  thought 
unbecoming  for  women  to  press  into  tumultuous  assembhes. 
.  Perhaps  it  was  thought,  that,  as  all  those  who  vote 
for  taxes  must  bear  the  tax,  none  would  be  imposed,  except  for 
the  pubUc  good. 

"For  both  the  widow  and  the  single  woman,"  he  continues, 
"I  have  the  highest  respect;  and  would,  at  any  time,  give  my 
consent  to  secure  to  them  the  franchise,  though  I  do  not  think 
it  would  increase  their  security. 

"The  Committee  of  Taxation,"  he  adds,  "are  regularly  chosen 
by  the  freeholders  and  housekeepers;  and,  in  the  choice  of  them, 
you  have  as  legal  a  right  to  vote  as  any  person." 

Mr.  Lee  thinks,  that,  in  a  few  minutes'  conversation, 
he  could  "content"  his  sister  upon  the  subject;  but 
eighty  years  have  passed  away,  and  the  question  is 
still  unsettled. 

What  he  calls  a  "woman's  security"  is  proved  to 
be  no  security,  even  in  the  small  matter  of  money, 
for  men  are  constantly  imposing  taxes,  the  burden  of 


360  THE    COURT. 

which  they  are  never  to  bear.  As  I  have  shown,  in 
treating  of  labor,  what  position  women  hold  toward 
the  State  in  the  matter  of  employment,  I  will  not 
repeat  the  statement  here.  Let  these  pages  bear  no 
other  burden  than  that  of  woman's  civil  rights, — 
'^ woman's  rights," — a  phrase  which  we  all  hate; 
which  soils  the  lips  that  use  it;  which  women  speak 
with  such  unction  as  a  slave  might  clank  his  chains ! 

Soil  the  lips?  Not  because  it  is  a  phrase  which 
stirs  the  ridicule  and  the  contempt  of  the  weak- 
minded;  not  because  you  consider  it  only  the  second 
term  of  the  Bloomer  equation:  but  because  the  ne- 
cessity to  use  it  shows  how  little  has  yet  been  done; 
shows  that  men  still  dwell  on  distinctions  of  sex,  in 
preference  to  identities  of  duty;  that  women  are  play- 
things still  in  the  popular  estimate, — creatures  of  the 
nursery  and  the  drawing-room,  but  not  angels  of  God, 
joint-heirs  of  immortality. 

We  have  not  laid  a  secure  foundation  for  any  state- 
ment of  this  subject,  unless  we  have  made  it  clear 
that  "woman's  rights"  are  identical  with  "human 
rights;"  that  what  men  do  for  women,  they  do  in  far 
ifider  measure  for  themselves;  that  no  father,  brother, 
or  husband  can  have  all  the  privileges  ordained  for 
him  of  God,  till  mother  and  sister  and  wife  are  set 
free  to  secure  them  according  to  instinctive  individual 
bias. 

The  subject  would  have  no  interest  for  me,  if  it 
were  but  a  selfish  clamor  of  one  class  for  advantages 
over  another;  but  it  does  interest  me, — interest  be- 


THE   UNITED-STATES   LAW.  361 

yond  all  earthly  debate,— because,  in  its  evolution,, 
there  unfolds  also  the  highest  interest  of  our  common 
humanity. 

That  public  opinion  has  been  somewhat  conquered, 
the  reception  given  to  women  in  the  lyceum  is  alone 
sufficient  to  show.  When  a  woman  of  good  social 
standing  struggles  with  convention  on  the  one  hand, 
and  womanly  affection  on  the  other,  she  still  stands 
on  the  platform  somewhat  as  she  did  at  the  stake; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  awakening' public  interest 
has  nurtured  a  class  of  women  who  owe  all  that  they 
have  and  are  to  the  platform  itself. 

With  no  oppressive  restrictions  in  their  circum- 
stances,— endowed  with  strong  good  sense  and  a 
vigorous  talent, — they  have  won  their  way  io  the 
public  esteem;  and  are  stronger  and  healthier  than 
most  women,  only  because  they  have  had  an  object 
for  life  and  thought  to  grasp. 

What  will  most  help  women  in  the  matter  of  labor, 
and,  through  labor,  to  their  ''civil  rights,"  is  a  new 
conception  of  the  dignity  of  labor  on  the  part  of  the 
educated  classes,  men  as  well  as  women. 

Harriet  Hosmer  comes  back  from  Rome  to  queen 
it  over  our  men;  Rosa  Bonheur  drives  a  tandem  of 
Flemish  horses  through  a  square  of  canvas,  and  over 
the  very  necks  of  her  critics:  but  we  want  women 
who  shall  turn  the  trades  into  fine  arts.  Do  you  smile 
at  the  expression?  It  is  legitimate.  France  has  al- 
ready answered  my  demand.  A  finer  statue  than  the 
''Moses"  of  Michael  Angelo  would  be  one  womanly 


362  THE    COURT. 

model  of  patient  thoroughness.  A  finer  picture  than 
the  glowing  pencils  of  Titian  and  Claude  ever  fused 
into  a  canvas  would  be  the  prospective  elevation  of 
manual  labor. 

The  fine  arts  are  already  obedient  to  woman's  will. 
To  what  woman  is  it  reserved  to  make  the  useful  arts 
pay  tribute?  Dependent  upon  the  ''rights  to  labor," 
as  we  have  already  seen,  is  ''woman's  civil  equality." 
If  all  the  fields  of  human  labor  are  thrown  absolutely 
open  (and  you  admit  that  they  ought  to  be) ;  if  women 
enter  and  grow  wealthy  therein;  if  every  second 
woman,  for  instance,  were  an  intelligent  property- 
holder, — js  it  credible  that  she,  or  her  husband  for 
her,  would  remain  contented  in  her  present  minority? 
Would  she  not  want  a  seat  in  the  legislature  to  pro- 
tect her  property,  a  vote  to  control  appropriations  and 
taxes?  There  are  no  revolutionists  like  the  indus- 
trial classes. 

It  was  the  discontent  of  merchants  and  artisans 
which  hunted  Charles  Stuart  to  the  block,  and  paved 
the  way  for  English  freedom.  It  was  the  discontent 
of  trade,  a  long-entertained  moral  disgust,  culminat- 
ing in  indignant  contempt  at  a  Stamp  Act,  which 
secured  American  independence, — I  wish  we  could 
say,  American  freedom  as  well.  Create,  then,  a  class 
of  wealthy  working  women,  you  who  are  ambitious 
of  a  female  franchise,  and  society  will  be  forced  to 
give  you  your  desire. 

Wendell  Phillips  says,  that,  when  woman  is  once 
brought  to  the  ballot-box,  men  will  cry  out,  "Educate 


THE   UNITED-STATES   LAW.  363 

her!''  in  self-preservation.  If  this  be  true  (and  I  am 
not  sure  that  it  is;  for  a  great  many  popular  elections 
are  at  this  moment  carried  in  the  Middle  and  South- 
ern States,  to  come  no  nearer  home,  by  the  uneducated 
class,  partly  by  the  dram-shops  indeed), — if  this  he 
true,  however,  it  is  a  ''poor  rule  which  does  not  work 
both  ways;"  and  we  may  go  farther  than  Mr.  Phil- 
lips, and  say,  he  will  also  cry  out,  ''Give  her  some- 
thing to  do!"  that  she  may  understand  the  interests 
of  property,  and  be  qualified  to  plead  for  them.  Mr. 
Phillips  plants  himself  upon  the  right  of  suffrage,  and 
goes  back  to  secure  education  and  free  labor,  for  State 
reasons.  He  has  every  right  to  do  it;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  may  rest  upon  our  undoubted  right  to 
education,  and  go  forward,  with  safe,  strong  steps, 
to  claim  the  right  of  suffrage.  When  a  majority  of 
women  find  the  means  of  thorough  education  open, 
then  a  much  greater  number  will  seek  actual  employ- 
ment, and  immediately  the  interests  of  property  will 
compel  them  to  clamor  for  suffrage.  Do  not  misun- 
derstand me.  It  is  not  a  nation  of  paid  underlings, 
of  ever  so  intelligent  clerks  and  apprentices,  men  or 
women,  that  will  control  the  springs  of  government, 
and  overthrow  institutions  as  well  as  prejudices,  if 
they  stand  in  their  way:  it  is  the  heads  of  firms,  the 
movers  in  great  undertakings,  the  proprietors  of  mills, 
the  builders  of  ships,  the  contractors  for  supplies,  per- 
sons conversant  with  large  interests,  and  quick  to  see 
their  jeopardy,  which,  as  women  no  less  than  men, 
must  secure  the  elective  right. 


364  THE    COURT. 

How  I  should  rejoice  to  see  a  large  Lowell  mill 
wholly  owned  and  managed  by  women!  What  is  to 
make  it  possible? — only,  that  the  unoccupied  women 
of  wealth  and  rank,  at  this  moment  in  the  Common- 
wealth, should  combine  to  build  or  buy  such  a  mill. 
Suppose  it  well  managed,  representing  ultimately  a 
million  of  dollars:  do  you  believe  it  would  long  re- 
main without  political  power?  Just  as  the  testy  trade 
of  Upsal  demanded  the  franchise  for  its  eighty-one 
women,  so  would  the  Lowell  mill. 

Every  year,  these  ten  years,  our  sturdy  friend  Dr. 
Hunt  has  sent  up  her  protest  to  the  city  assessors. 
She  has  not  quite  had  the  heart,  as  I  wish  some 
woman  had,  to  let  them  sell  her  household  goods  over 
her  head,  for  non-payment  of  taxes;  but  the  City 
Government  sits  as  serene  and  patient  under  her  in- 
flictions as  if  she  had  never  spoken.  Her  protests 
probably  go  back  to  the  pulp  of  the  paper-mill;  and, 
but  for  the  newspaper,  we  should  never  know  that 
they  were  written.  But  five  thousand  female  prop- 
erty-holders, calling  their  own  caucus,  and  storming 
the  City  Hall  with  well-concerted  words,  would  com- 
pel any  government  to  listen;  would  compel  com- 
mittees to  sit,  and  departments  to  act.  Let  it  be 
your  first  duty,  then,  to  add  to  the  number  of  intelli- 
gent female  workers. 

Last  summer,  I  heard  one  of  our  friends  say, 
that  the  reason  that  men  did  not  wish  women  to 
enter  medical  societies,  and  receive  medical  diplo- 
mas, was,  that  they  were  unwilling  to  be  detected 


THE   UNITED-STATES   LAW.  365 

in  their  own  double-dealing  and  malpractice.  I 
should  not  be  willing  to  indorse  a  statement  so 
broadly  made.  Mean  men  may  justify  it:  but  the 
men  I  have  known,  the  men  who  have  been  at  once 
my  inspiration  and  my  strength, — these  men  were 
not  mean;  yet  among  them  even  the  bravest  doubted, 
at  first,  as  to  the  expediency  of  our  discussion. 

These  man  have  felt  a  tender  reverence  for  moral 
purity  in  woman.  They  have  seen  laborers  of  the 
lower  class  fall  as  if  smitten  by  a  pestilence.  They 
had  not  faith  to  save  the  world  at  such  a  cost.  From 
the  malpractice  and  guilty  dread  of  mean  men,  then; 
from  the  sensitive  horror  of  the  noblest,  let  us  learn, 
at  least,  that  the  duty  woman  owes  the  State  is  a 
moral  duty.  A  full  understanding  of  this  will  give 
her  courage  to  press  her  claims.  It  is  the  power  of 
conscience  and  love  which  she  is  to  bring  to  bear  on 
the  ballot-box,  and  which  is  to  mould,  with  her  aid, 
questions  and  interests  hitherto  untouched  by  any 
higher  impulse  than  the  love  of  gain. 

I  cannot  leave  this  statement  of  human  rights, 
without  claiming  for  woman  one  right  of  which  men 
very  commonly  deprive  her;  in  behalf  of  which  soci- 
ety makes  no  clamor,  and  about  which  the  most  radi- 
cal reformers  say  very  little.  I  mean  woman's  right  to 
find  man  in  his  proper  place,  as  counsellor  and  friend. 

As  father,  to  find  him  interested,  equally  with  his 
wife,  in  the  spiritual  custody  and  training  of  his 
daughters;  giving  thus  some  portion  of  each  day  to 
imbuing  yo^ng  womanly  souls  with  manly  strength. 


366  THE    COURT. 

As  brother,  to  find  in  him  wise  respect  for  woman- 
hood, and  helpful  free  communion. 

As  husband,  to  find  him,  unless  there  is  manifest 
interposition  of  Providence,  always  at  the  head  of 
his  family,  always  the  support  and  counsellor  of  his 
w^ife,  as  she  in  turn  is  to  be  his;  making  his  love  her 
shelter,  his  strength  her  dependence,  his  experience 
her  guide,  his  manliness  the  complement  of  her 
womanliness. 

As  a  son,  to  find  him  always  anxious  and  ready  to 
minister,  provident  to  think,  patient  to  bear,  and  will- 
ing to  act;  never  shirking,  from  idleness,  the  duty 
which  an  active  mother  does  not  shrink  from  bending, 
perhaps  breaking,  beneath. 

Society  sets  man  free  from  every  conceivable  fam- 
ily duty,  without  a  word.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
binds  women  down  to  them  with  cords  of  iron,  and 
is  pitiless  if  a  single  one  be  snapped.  I  do  not  ask 
society  to  require  less  of  woman,  but  more  of  man. 
There  is  an  immense  amount  of  cant,  intentional  and 
unintentional,  talked  upon  this  subject.  Last  Janu- 
ary, I  heard  one  of  our  wisest  and  best  public  teach- 
ers speak  upon  the  constitution  of  the  family;  and, 
when  he  had  spoken  whole  pages  of  solid  sense,  he 
said  this  foolish  thing, — that  the  life  of  the  family 
rested  in  the  mother;  that,  when  she  died,  the  chil- 
dren must  scatter,  the  father  could  not  hold  them 
alone,  but  that  the  father  might  be  faithless  or  dis- 
sipated, might  abide  in  foreign  countries,  might 
wander  for  years   a   stranger,    and  still   the  family 


THE    UNITED-STATES   LAW.  367 

sacredness  be  unbroken.  I  do  not  believe  it.  I  pro- 
test against  such  a  view  of  the  family,  as  a  great 
public  evil,  and  one  which  no  public  teacher  should 
strengthen  by  any  heedless  or  sentimental  words. 

No  man  has  a  right  to  ask  any  woman  to  be  his 
wife,  who  means  to  sacrifice  her  life  to  his  own  love 
of  business  or  pleasure  or  vagrancy;  who  does  not 
mean  to  stand  strong  at  her  side  till  death.  I  speak 
for  the  heart  of  all  womanhood  when  I  say,  that  no 
good  woman  would  ever  accept  such  an  offer,  if  she 
supposed  she  were  to  be  idly  left  to  fulfil  its  duties 
alone.  If  God  had  intended  to  rear  women  independ- 
ent of  manly  influence,  he  would  never  have  consti- 
tuted the  family.  It  is  because  every  woman  needs 
every  man  that  its  laws  are  absolute.  If  the  physical 
legitimacy  of  the  family  depends  upon  the  mother,  the 
spiritual  legitimacy  depends  upon  the  holy  faithfulness 
of  the  father.  When  death  or  sickness  or  imperative 
duty  takes  her  beloved  ones  from  her,  God  sends  to 
woman  the  Comforter,  who  helps  her  to  bear  and  do 
her  double  duty.  Yet  even  this  angel  is  born  of  a 
voiceless  sorrow.  It  was  in  recognition  of  this  human 
need,  as  much  as  of  the  divine  love,  that  Theodore 
Parker  was  accustomed  to  pray  to  Him  who  is  both- 
Father  and  Mother. 

Do  you  object,  that,  under  the  present  constitution 
of  society,  man  cannot  find  time  for  this  fidelity? 
When  woman  becomes  an  active  worker,  adding  to 
the  resources  of  the  household,  man  is  set  free  from  a 
portion  of  his  care.     The  future  offers  him  ample 


368  THE    COURT. 

time;  the* present,  more  than  he  uses.  I  wish  I  could 
see  him  as  anxious  to  make  acquaintance  with  his 
own  young  children  as  with  the  gay  society  of  his 
neighborhood. 

The  actual  guardianship  of  society  is  now  thrown 
into  woman's  hands.  It  does  not  belong  to  her:  it 
belongs  to  men  and  women.* 

Individual  men  shrink  from  the  idea  of  being  '^  gov- 
erned by  their  wives."  From  traditional  indolence, 
however,  and  that  sentimental  respect  which  does  not 
permit  a  man  to  sit  in  a  woman's  presence,  the 
''world"  has  certainly  come  to  be  governed  by  "its 


*  This  passage  was  originally  prompted  by  some  reflections  on  the  changes 
which  have  occurred  in  domestic  life  in  Boston. 

Here  the  family,  even  among  those  of  the  highest  social  rank,  had  once  a 
sacred  simplicity  pleasant  to  remember.  Men  were  acciistomed  to  take  their 
three  meals  with  their  wives  and  children.  The  latest  dinner-hour  was  two, 
P.M.;  and  suppers  were  unheard  of.  The  evening  party  began  at  seven;  and 
young  girls  went  freely  and  uninvited  from  house  to  house,  with  their  needle 
or  their  book. 

How  greatly  all  this  is  changed,  my  readers,  many  of  them,  feel  still  more 
•deeply  than  I;  and,  with  this  change,  the  formation  of  "clubs"  of  various  kinds 
Jias  brought  about  others  far  more  important. 

A  young  married  lady  of  rank  and  fashion  was  lately  lamenting  to  me  the 
isolation  of  husbands  and  wives,  fathers  and  children,  consequent  upon  club- 
life. 

"But,"  she  concluded  with  a  sigh,  "if  my  husband  had  no  club,  he  would 
expect  a  hot  supper  for  a  friend  two  or  three  times  a  week;  and  how  could  I 
«ver  accomplish  that?" 

This  indolence  of  women  lies  at  the  bottom  of  many  serious  social  evils.  The 
woman  who  will  not,  health  and  fortune  permitting,  make  herself  responsible 
in  such  a  case  for  any  number  of  hot  suppers,  deserves  to  see  her  own  happiness 
wither,  her  own  hearth  made  desolate. 

It  is  needless  to  add,  that  if  women  would  educate  themselves  to  be  true  and 
noble  companions  to  their  husbands,  and  resign  on  their  own  part  all  that  is 
unsound,  and  therefore  unbecoming,  in  fashionable  life,  hot  suppers  would 
•cease  to  be  a  desideratum,  and  men  would  pass  pleasant  evenings  without  them. 


THE   UNITED-STATES   LAW.  369 

wife."  Worst  of  all,  nobody  punishes  it  even  by  a 
sneer. 

The  historical  development  of  woman's  social  prog- 
ress corresponds  to  the  logical  statement  upon  which 
I  have  insisted. 

Nearly  two  centuries  ago,  Mary  Astell  would  have 
established  a  college  for  women;  but  the  bigotry  of 
Bishop  Burnet  defeated  her  plans.  The  niece  of  a 
beneficed  clergyman,  she  had  not  the  courage  to  press 
her  schemes  against  the  open  opposition  of  the  church. 
Many  other  efforts,  like  hers,  to  secure  and  make  use 
of  education,  led  the  way  tc  a  recognition  of  a  de- 
cided bias  in  the  individual:  so  when,  a  century 
later,  Mary  Wollstonecraft  was  born,  the  way  was 
open  for  the  assertion  of  the  right  to  labor.  This 
assertion  is  hardly  indicated  in  her  most  celebrated 
work;  but  it  gives  pungency  and  effect  to  the  dreari- 
est pages  of  her  novels. 

In  Australia,  when  a  female  child  is  born,  the  natives 
break  her  finger-joints;  an  artificial  distinction,  which 
they  seem  to  think  more  decisive  and  enduring  than 
God's  own  limit  of  sex. 

Mary  Wollstonecraft  saw,  that  civilized  society, 
enslaved  by  tradition  and  custom,  imposed  condi- 
tions quite  as  arbitrary,  and,  to  all  practical  pur- 
poses, broke  every  joint  in  a  woman's  body;  leaving 
her  helpless,  to  depend  on  the  strength  and  skill  and 
affection  of  man. 

A  passionate  and  thriftless  father,  who  spent  more 
than  three  daughters  could  earn,  and  whom  she  never- 

28 


370  THE    COURT. 

theless  protected  to  her  dying  day,  did  not  give  her  a 
very  high  idea  of  the  security  of  such  dependence. 
The  response  to  her  appeal  was  heard  in  a  myriad 
of  distinguished  voices,  and  seen  in  the  consecutive, 
chosen,  and  persevering  labors  of  Harriet  Martineau 
in  political  economy,  of  Anna  Jameson  in  artistic 
criticism,  of  Mary  Carpenter  in  the  reformation  of 
criminals,  of  Florence  Nightingale  in  sanitary  reform, 
of  Caroline  Chisholm  in  emigration,  of  Mrs.  Griffith 
in  marine  botany  (a  special  study,  which  she  may 
almost  be  said  to  have  created),  of  Janet  Taylor  in 
practical  philanthropy  among  seamen,  and  nautical 
astronomy. 

This  selection  of  duty  shows  the  advance  of  the 
movement.  Formerly  a  woman  might  be  literary  in 
a  general  sense:  now  she  had  the  oversight  of  the 
field,  and  might  choose  the  place  and  kind  of  her 
work. 

All  this  prepared  the  way  for  the  advent  of  Marga- 
ret Fuller,  and  brought  about  the  condition  of  w^hich 
she  was  the  exponent.  She  caught  the  rumor  which 
floated  in  subtle  discord  all  around  her.  Her  quick 
insight  detected  every  true  and  living  germ  of  thought 
in  the  confused  social  deposits  and  exhalations.  Out 
of  the  discord,  she  wrought  a  quaint  and  scholarly 
music;  out  of  the  refuse,  she  enriched  a  fragrant  gar- 
den: and  this  song,  this  outgrowth,  had  an  essential 
music  and  beauty,  and  were  caught  at  once  to  the 
popular  heart. 

That  the  division  of  labor  was  already  taking  place, 


THE    UNITED-STATES   LAW.  371 

was  obvious  enough  to  her:  so  she  claimed,  in  ad- 
vance, the  right  of  suffrage.  Society  was  already 
prepared  to  make  this  claim,  but  only  discovered  its 
readiness  as  it  listened  to  her  enthusiastic  song.  Like 
Deborah,  our  friend  struck  her  cymbals;  and,  when 
the  heart  of  the  people  shouted  consent,  they  ''made 
her  a  judge  over  them." 

Although  it  was  doubtless  owing  to  many  older 
causes,  it  seemed  as  if  her  statement  of  the  ''great 
lawsuit"  in  1844  led  to  the  first  Woman's  Convention 
at  Seneca  Falls  in  1848;  and,  in  1850,  the  National 
Woman's-rights  Association  began  the  yearly  work 
in  which  it  has  ever  since  persevered. 

Man,  as  well  as  woman,  has  been  forced  to  respect 
this  work,  moved  by  the  moral  destitution  in  the  low- 
est, and  the  profane  inanity  in  the  highest,  ranks  of 
life,  which  is  the  result  of  our  social  depravity. 

Profane  inanity,  I  repeat;  for  every  helpless  woman 
is  a  living,  intolerable  blasphemy  against  the  Most 
High.  Not  more  a  blasphemy  than  every  helpless 
man;  but  society  neither  expects,  defends,  nor  pro- 
vides for,  helpless  men.  It  is  only  the  helpless  woman 
who  is  expected  and  approved. 

Often  do  we  hear  it  said,  that  no  law  forbids  Ameri- 
can women  to  work. 

Neither,  it  has  been  responded,  is  there  any  law 
which  forbids  Chinese  women  to  walk;  but  the  care- 
ful ligatures,  so  closely  pressed  by  unsuspecting  moth- 
ers about  those  tender  feet,  do  not  do  their  work  more 
surely  than  the  inevitable  restrictions  of  society. 


372  THE   COURT. 

In  summing  up  this  constantly  accruing  list  of 
influences  and  changes,  I  must  again  direct  your 
attention  to  the  fact,  that,  from  the  earliest  dawn  of 
modern  civilization,  women  have  been,  in  some  na- 
tions at  least,  invested  with  political  power. 

The  mock-marriage,  by  which  the  woman's  entailed 
suffrage  served  a  fraudulent  purpose;  the  abbesses 
called  to  Parliament  in  right  of  abbey-lands,  the  per- 
mission accorded  to  the  eighty-one  women  of  Upsal, 
the  position  of  the  French  ''Dames  de  la  Halle,"  the 
female  stockholders  in  the  East-India  Company,  that 
one  persistent  female  property-holder  in  Novia  Scotia, 
the  fifty-dollar  proclamation-money  in  New  Jersey, — 
all  indicate  that  there  never  has  been,  and  never  will 
be,  any  serious  difficulty  about  woman's  voting  in 
any  age  or  any  country  where  the  right  to  vote  de- 
pends upon  the  possession  of  property,  and  where 
she  herself  professes  to  desire  it. 

Understand,  then,  that  the  abstract  right  to  vote  is 
not  the  question  for  you  to  consider:  that  w^as  settled 
some  hundreds  of  years  ago. 

The  practical  question  for  American  men  to  put  to 
themselves  is,  whether  their  own  democratic  experi- 
ment is  a  failure.  Will  you  go  back  to  the  property 
basis  for  your  own  franchise?  or  do  you  still  profess 
to  believe,  that  man — as  man,  as  child  of  God — has 
a  right  to  reign,  which  does  not  depend  upon  broad 
doubloons  or  broad  acres?  And,  if  man  has  this 
right  upon  a  simple  human  ground,  how  can  you 
deny  it  to  woman? 


THE    UNITED-STATES   LAW.  373 

Will  you  say  that  she  is  not  human, — that  she  has 
no  soul? 

Even  Mahomet  did  better  than  that.  Some  one 
once  asked  him  if  the  marriage-tie  were  immortal, 
and  if  a  husband  might  claim  his  wife  in  the  next 
world : — 

''If  the  man  be  the  superior  being,"  he  replied,  "he  can  claim 
his  wife  or  not,  as  he  chooses;  but,  if  the  woman  be  the  superior, 
the  decision  must  rest  with  her." 

And  what  Mahomet  thus  prophesied  of  the  world 
to  come  is  clearly  true  of  the  world  that  is.  There  is 
no  such  thing  as  cheating  either  God  or  humanity. 

Let  him  who  aspires  to  rule  make  himself  superior 
in  understanding  and  moral  purpose,  and  he  will 
rule. 

No  possibilities,  visible  or  invisible,  need  daunt 
him;  but,  let  him  be  false  by  one  hair's  breadth,  and 
he  carries  his  doom  in  his  own  bosom  as  certainly  as 
the  flawed  crystal  at  the  approach  of  frost. 

You  are,  then,  to  base  your  demand  for  woman's 
civil  rights  upon  her  simple  humanity, — the  value  of 
the  soul  itself. 

If  you  deny  this  foundation  for  her,  you  deny  it  for 
yourselves,  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence  is 
only  an  impertinent  pretence. 

It  may  not  be  easy  to  push  this  truth  home,  and 
force  your  friends  and  neighbors  to  consider  it;  but, 
once  convinced  in  your  own  minds,  you  cannot  escape 
from  the  responsibility. 


374  THE    COURT. 

Wendell  Phillips  once  told  us  of  an  old  catechism, 
printed,  I  think,  at  Venice  in  1563,  which  contained 
the  following  question  and  answer: — 

Q.  How  shall  I  show  my  obedience  to  God? 
A.  By  never  doing  any  thing  which  is  disagreeable  to  my 
neighbor. 

Is  it  possible  that  this  catechism  is  still  in  general 
use? 

Fashionable  morality  is  of  so  loose  a  sort,  that  to 
do  any  thing  disagreeable  to  one's  neighbor  is  still,  in 
the  estimation  of  most  people,  the  unpardonable  sin. 
People  who  are  capable  of  hesitating  on  that  account 
need  not  be  greatly  anxious  about  their  responsibility. 

Our  cause  does  not  need  them;  resting,  not  on 
timid  self -deceivers,  but  on  immutable  truth,  and  the 
hallowed  recognition  of  woman  herself. 

Society  still  cries,  like  King  John  in  the  play, — 

"If  not,  fill  up  the  measure  of  her  will; 
Yes,  in  some  measure,  satisfy  her  so, 
That  we  shall  stop  her  exclamation!" 

And  woman,  serener  than  Constance,  may  whisper 
back, — 

"Wherefore,  since  law  is  perfect  wrong, 
Why  should  the  law  forbid  my  tongue  to  cry?" 


TEN  YEARS: 
AN  APPENDIX. 


"The  only  respect  in  which  all  men  continue  for  ever  to  be 
equal,  is  that  of  the  equal  right  which  every  man  has  to  defend 
himself;  but  this  involves  a  source  of  much  inequaUty  in  respect 
to  the  things  which  any  one  may  have  a  right  to  defend." — Adam 
Ferguson. 


TEN  YEARS: 


AN   APPENDIX. 


"To  go  on  working,  I  consider  the  only  thing  to  do;  and,  when 
friends  urge  this  after  every  fresh  effort,  their  doing  so  in 
itself  contains  a  kind  of  verdict." — Felix  Mendelssohn 
Bartholdy. 

THERE  are  some  items  of  interest,  that  have  come 
under  my  observation,  for  the  first  time,  during 
the  last  few  years,  which  I  have  not  found  it  pos- 
sible to  add  to  the  preceding  lectures  without  de- 
stroying their  symmetry.  I  therefore  offer  them  in 
an  Appendix.  They  are  not  placed  here  because  they 
are  unimportant,  but  simply  that  the  later  progress  of 
public  opinion  may  be  set  forth  by  itself. 

For  the  last  five  years,  the  women  of  the  United 
States  have  held  few  public  discussions.  They  have 
done  wisely.  Circumstances  have  proved  their  friend. 
Nothing  ever  had  done,  nothing  ever  will  do  again,  so 
great  a  service  to  woman,  in  so  short  a  time,  as  this 
dreadful  war,  out  of  which  we  are  so  slowly  emerging. 
Respect  for  woman  came  only  with  the  absolute  need 
of  her;  and  so  many  women  of  distinguished  ability 
made  themselves  of  service  to  the  government,  that 
we  had  no  single  woman  to  honor  as  England  had 


378  TEN  years: 

honored  Florence  Nightingale.  With  us,  her  name 
was  legion.  But  with  the  prospect  of  peace  comes 
the  old  duty  of  agitation;  and  we  find  ourselves  again 
summoned  to  our  work,  and  again  anxiously  awaiting 
its  results, — anxiously,  for  the  public  work  of  women 
is  an  object  which  still  attracts  the  gaze  of  the  curi- 
ous; and  the  smallest  indiscretion  on  the  part  of  a 
single  woman  has  a  retrograde  effect,  which  very  few 
seem  able  to  measure. 

Our  reform  is  unlike  all  others;  for  it  must  begin  in 
the  family,  at  the  very  heart  of  society.  If  it  be  not 
kindly,  temperately,  and  thoughtfully  conducted,  men 
everywhere  will  be  able  to  justfy  their  remonstrances. 
Let  us  rather  justify  ourselves.  My  last  report  to  any 
convention  was  made  to  those  called  in  Boston  in 
1859  and  1860.  Between  that  time  and  1863,  I 
printed  five  volumes,  which  are  nothing  but  reports 
upon  the  various  interests  significant  to  our  cause. 
During  the  last  four  years,  I  have  watched  the  devel- 
opment of  American  industry  in  its  relation  to  women, 
and  have,  through  the  newspapers,  aroused  public 
feeling  in  their  behalf.  My  labor  is  naturally  classed 
under  the  three  heads  of  Education,  Labor,  and  Law. 
A  proper  education  must  prepare  woman  for  labor, 
skilled  or  manual:  and  the  experience  of  a  laborer 
should  introduce  her  to  citizenship;  for  it  provides 
her  with  rights  to  protect,  privileges  to  secure,  and 
property  to  be  taxed.  If  she  be  a  laborer,  she  must 
have  an  interest  in  the  laws  which  control  labor. 

In  considering  our  position  in  these  three  respects, 


AN   APPENDIX.  379 

it  is  impossible  to  offer  a  digest  of  all  that  has  occurred 
during  the  last  six  years.  What  I  have  to  say  will 
refer  chiefly  to  the  events  of  the  last  two. 

EDUCATION. 

The  most  important  educational  movement  of  the 
last  two  years  has  been  the  formation  of  an  American 
Association  for  the  Promotion  of  Social  Science,  with 
four  departments,  and  two  women  on  its  Board  of 
Directors.  Subsequently,  the  Boston  Association  was 
organized,  with  seven  departments,  and  seven  women 
on  its  Board  of  Directors;  one  woman  being  as- 
signed to  each  department,  including  that  of  law. 
Any  woman  in  the  United  States  can  become  a 
member  of  the  American  association.  If  the  oppor- 
tunities it  offers  are  not  seized,  it  will  be  the  fault 
of  women  themselves. 

During  the  past  winter,  the  Lowell  Institute  in  Bos- 
ton, in  connection  with  the  government  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Technological  Institute,  took  a  step  which 
deserves  public  mention.  They  advertised  classes  for 
both  sexes,  under  the  most  eligible  professors,  for  in- 
struction in  French,  mathematics,  and  natural  science. 
As  the  training  was  to  be  thorough,  the  number  of 
pupils  was  limited,  and  the  women  who  applied  would 
have  filled  the  seats  many  times  over.  These  classes 
have  been  wholly  free,  and  have  added  to  the  obliga- 
tion which  the  free  Art  School  for  women  had  already 
conferred. 


380  TEN  years: 

On  the  25th  of  June,  1865,  the  Ripley  College,  at 
Poultney,  Vt.,  celebrated  its  Commencement.  Seven- 
teen young  ladies  were  graduated.  Ralph  Waldo 
Emei-son  delivered  the  literary  address,  and  two  days 
were  devoted  to  the  examination  of  incoming  pupils. 
Feeling  very  little  satisfaction  in  the  success  of  col- 
leges intended  for  the  separate  sexes,  I  take  more 
pleasure  in  speaking  of  the  Baker  University,  in 
Kansas,  which  was  chartered  by  the  Legislature  of 
that  State  in  1857,  as  a  university  for  both  sexes. 
It  has  now  been  in  active  operation  for  seven  years. 
A  little  more  than  a  year  ago.  Miss  Martha  Baldwin, 
a  graduate  of  the  Baldwin  University  at  Berea,  Ohio, 
was  appointed  to  the  chair  of  Greek  and  Latin.  She 
is  but  twenty-one  years  of  age,  but  was  elected  by 
the  government  to  make  the  address  for  the  faculty 
at  the  opening  of  the  Commencement  exercises,  and 
seems  to  have  given  entire  satisfaction  during  the 
year. 

Howard  University  was  chartered  at  the  last  session 
of  Congress,  for  the  education  of  all  classes  of  stu- 
dents, without  distinction  of  sex,  race,  or  color.  It 
has  purchased  three  acres  of  land  in  a  pleasant  part 
of  Washington,  and  is  now  ready  to  receive  about 
twenty-five  students.  Rev.  Dr.  Boynton,  chaplain  of 
the  House  of  Representatives,  is  President  of  the 
Board  of  Trustees. 

St.  Lawrence  University,  Canton,  N.  Y.,  a  univer- 
sity still  very  young,  graduates  both  men  and  women, 
on  precisely  the  same  conditions.     Civil  engineering 


AN   APPENDIX.  381 

and  political  economy,  are  the  only  optional  studies 
with  the  women.  It  reports  one  theological  student. 
Lombard  University,  Galesburg,  111.,  does  the  same; 
but  I  know  nothing  of  its  standard  of  scholarship. 
It  is  only  within  the  last  year  that  I  have  been  able 
to  visit  the  most  conspicuous  colleges  in  this  country 
in  which  women  are  taught  with  men.  I  consider  the 
system  of  mixed  classes  an  immense  advantage,  as  it 
secures  the  standard  of  scholarship,  prevents  all  fool- 
ish ''hazing, "  and  places  personal  character  and  moral 
deportment  in  their  right  relations  to  classic  study. 
It  prevents  also  such  instruction  in  the  classics  as 
must  necessarily  deprave  the  estimate  of  woman. 

OBERLIN. 

About  all  that  I  knew  of  Antioch,  before  I  went 
West,  was  this, — that  it  was  a  college  for  the  in- 
struction of  both  sexes.  I  would  like  to  have  my 
readers  know  more  of  Antioch  than  I  did,  and  to  feel, 
without  seeing  it,  the  same  intense  interest  that 
warms  me  now.  They  have  heard  of  Oberlin,  I  sup- 
pose,— heard  of  it  as  a  sort  of  fanatical  way-station 
between  the  district  school  and  Harvard  University, 
where  men,  women,  and  "colored  people"  are  all 
taught  together.  If  I  should  show  them  what  Ober- 
lin has  actually  donej  I  think  they  may  see  more 
plainly  what  it  is  possible  for  Antioch  to  do:  so  I 
shall  begin  with  some  account  of  this  college,  which 
has  ''saved  the  North-west." 

It  is  no  idle  boast:  and,  when  I  had  stayed  a  week 


382  TEN  years: 

at  Antioch,  and  was  thoroughly  roused  to  a  sense  of 
its  immense  importance;  when  I  had  seen  how  admi- 
rably fitted  was  Dr.  Hosmer  for  the  work  given  him 
to  do, — I  decided  this  in  my  own  mind;  namely,  that 
if  any  one  thing  had  stood  in  the  way  of  Antioch 
hitherto,  if  any  thing  had  prevented  her  complete 
work,  it  was  the  Eastern  prejudice,  the  idea  that  men 
and  women  could  not  be  educated  together.  And,  as^ 
they  had  been  trying  this  experiment  at  Oberlin  for 
thirty-two  years,  I  thought  I  would  go  there,  and  see 
how  it  had  worked.  If  I  had  known  then,  what  I 
know  now,  that  out  of  the  bosom  of  Oberlin  twenty- 
two  colleges  had  sprung,  and  that,  of  the  twenty-two, 
ten  are  at  this  moment  officered  by  her  own  gradu- 
ates, I  think  I  might  have  spared  myself  the  trouble. 
Here  are  their  names;  for  you  will  care  more  for 
Oberlin,  if  you  get  some  glimpse  of  the  work  she  has 
done,  before  I  tell  you  the  details  of  her  story.  I 
have  put  an  asterisk  against  the  names  of  the  col- 
leges whose  presidents  are  graduates  of  Oberlin.  All 
of  those  named  receive  pupils  of  both  sexes. 

Ohio. — Baldwin  University,  Berea,  three  colleges  and  one  uni- 
versity, 326  pupils,  1846;  Heidelberg  College,  Tiffin;  Antioch  Col- 
lege, Yellow  Springs;  Mount  Union  College,  Alliance;  Otterbein 
College,  Westerville,  a  Gallery  of  Fine  Arts  forming,  360  students. 

Michigan.— *0]ivet  College,  308  pupils;  *Hillsdale  College,  609 
pupils;  *Albion  College;  *Adrian  College,  with  an  endowment  of 
$300,000. 

Wisconsin. — Madison  University;  *Ripon  College,  87  pupils* 


AN    APPENDIX.  383 

Illinois. — Wheaton  Ck)llege,  219  pupils;  Lombard  University. 
Indiana. — *Union  Christian  College,  Merom,  115  pupils. 
Minnesota. — *Northfield  College. 
New  York. — Genesee  College,  Lima;  Elmira  College. 
Kentucky. — Berea  College. 

Kansas. — State  University,  Lawrence;  Lincoln  College,  Topeka; 
Baker  University. 
Iowa. — Grenell  College;  *Tabor  College,  192  pupils. 

To  these  we  may  add  Oberlin  herself,  with  1,145 
pupils  for  the  term  which  has  just  closed,  and  the 
prospect  of  a  college  in  Missouri,  which  her  president 
has  recently  been  solicited  to  organize.  Wherever  I 
have  obtained  the  catalogues  of  1866,  I  have  recorded 
the  present  number  of  students  in  these  colleges.  To 
those  I  have  not  marked,  it  will  be  fair  to  allow  an- 
average  of  210  students.  Those  are  not  high  schools, 
be  it  understood,  but  colleges  in  the  proper  sense. 
There  is  no  doubt,  that  Oberlin,  as  the  principal  edu- 
cational influence  in  Ohio,  imposed  upon  Antioch 
and  all  other  ''Christian"  colleges  the  necessity  of 
educating  both  sexes.- 

In  1832,  Oberlin  was  a  little  religious  colony,  born 
into  a  complete  wilderness  out  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church.  The  plan  of  the  colony  involved  a  school, 
for  which  a  tract  of  five  hundred  acres  was  given. 
The  sale  of  the  remainder  of  a  tract  of  six  thousand 
acres  furnished  a  small  fund  with  which  to  begin 
teaching.  A  year  later,  the  students  of  Lane  Semi- 
nary determined  to  hold  an  antislavery  prayer  meet-- 


384  TEN  years: 

ing.  The  trustees  forbade  it.  ''You  are  right,"  said 
old  Dr.  Beecher,  when  the  mutinous  lads  appealed  to 
him, — ''you  are  right;  but  we  are  too  weak  to  hold 
Lane  Seminary  on  anti-slavery  principles.  Go  and 
make  it  possible  for  us."  They  went — Theodore 
Weld  and  Henry  B.  Stanton  among  them — to  speak 
the  truth  at  Oberlin.  Arthur  Tappan  called  from  the 
Broadway  Tabernacle  the  man  who  had  been  in  the 
front  of  the  great  awakening  which  has  swept 
through  the  land,  instinct  in  ef  ery  fibre  of  his  being 
with  the  spirit  of  aggressive  Christian  work.  "Go," 
he  wrote  to  President  Finney, — "go  and  teach  the 
young  men  whom  Lane  refuses."  One  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars  was  pledged  by  the  merchants.  Oberlin 
studied  in  summer  that  her  pupils  might  teach  all 
winter.  So,  promising  to  return  to  New  York  for  the 
winter  seasons,  President  Finney  found  his  way,  one 
muddy  spring  morning,  to  Oberlin.  What  he  found 
there  was  two  frame-houses  in  the  midst  of  the  forest, 
and  half  a  dozen  log-cabins.  He  found  also  his  sixty 
students.  . 

Very  soon  they  had  no  end  of  difficulties  to  contend 
with.  A  jealous  college,  that  had  wanted  Dr.  Finney 
for  its  president,  did  its  best  to  break  down  Oberlin. 
The  crash  of  1837  came;  and  Arthur  Tappan,  and 
the  rest  who  had  not  paid  out  capital,  ceased  to  pay 
interest.  It  was  necessary  to  raise  $50,000,  and  Pres- 
ident Finney  went  to  England  and  did  it.  Every 
man's  hand  was  against  them.  The  cross-roads  were 
ornamented  with  pictures  of  fugitive  slaves,  pursued 


AN   APPENDIX.  385 

by  lions  and  tigers,  and  running  in  the  direction  of 
Oberlin.  But  when  Oberlin  became  a  station  on  the 
underground  railroad,  and  the  slave-hunters  actually 
came  there  after  their  chattels,  the  case  altered.  The 
neighborhood  took  part  with  the  college,  as  if  by 
miraculous  conversion,  and  the  offensive  pictures  dis- 
appeared. Then  a  thousand  scholarships  were  insti- 
tuted, at  $100  each.  Some  were  perpetual;  some  for 
six,  eight,  or  ten  years.  On  the  interest  of  this  in- 
vestment the  college  now  lives.  The  scholarships,  as 
they  fall  in,  increase  its  means.  It  costs  $15,000  per 
annum,  and  $15  is  the  student's  yearly  fee.  He  rents 
his  scholarship  of  a  broker  in  the  town.  The  college 
is  managed  with  exquisite  economy,  and  the  most 
perfect  attention  to  essential  neatness. 

For  twenty  years  the  college  sent  out  into  the  West 
five  hundred  anti-slavery  pupils  yearly,  to  take  the 
post  of  teachers,  ministers,  editors,  and  lawyers. 
They  were  heretics,  so  they  were  pushed  farther  and 
farther  West.  For  the  last  fifteen  years,  it  has  sent 
out  a  thousand  yearly.  In  all,  twenty-five  thousand 
men  and  women  have  gone  out  from  her  bosom,  who 
have  eaten  and  drank  and  recited  at  the  same  board 
with  the  colored  man.  Through  all  her  pecuniary 
troubles,  her  original  teachers  have  stayed  by  her,  have 
given  up  all  else  for  her  sake;  and  President  Finney 
has  never  been  without  a  colored  student  at  his  table. 
There  are  two  large  churches  in  the  town;  for  a 
population  of  four  thousand  persons  has  grown  up 
to  supply  the  wants  of  the  college,  which  has  the 


386  TEN   YEAKS: 

great  advantage  of  still  retaining  the  services  of  those 
who  originally  created  it.  Last  year,  Dr.  Finney,  now 
nearly  eighty  years  old,  resigned  his  position  as  presi- 
dent, but  still  remains  at  the  head  of  the  Theological 
School.  I  had  always  thought  Oberlin  bigoted  to 
evangelical  ways.  I  did  not  find  it  so.  I  was  made 
as  welcome  to  cross-question  classes  as  if  I  had  been 
an  ordained  graduate  of  their  own.  All  theological 
teaching  is  done  by  discussion;  and  the  fact  that  the 
colleges  which  have  grown  up  under  her  graduates 
are  of  all  persuasions,  from  the  Methodist  to  the  Chris- 
tian, will  show  that  doctrine  is  not  urged.  In  all  the 
recitation-rooms,  questions  were  freely  asked  by  both 
sexes;  and  this  questioning  is  encouraged  by  all  the 
professors  but  one,  a  young  man  from  Yale.  ''Yes," 
said  President  Fairchild,  himself  a  graduate  of  Ober- 
lin, when  I  had  pointed  this  out;  ''yes,  that  is  what 
remains  of  New-England  stiffness.  Six  months  will 
convert  him:  we  shall  let  him  take  his  own  time."  I 
have  never  seen  any  thing  like  the  enthusiasm  this 
college  inspires  in  those  who  labor  for  it.  Would  that 
I  could  see  a  man  bred  at  Harvard  with  the  same 
patient  fire  in  his  soul  as  President  Finney!  As  I 
knelt  by  his  side  morning  and  evening,  I  felt  that 
under  his  ministry  the  very  stones  must  cry  out.  The 
twenty-five  thousand  men  sent  out  from  Oberlin  did 
not  go  out  as  citizens  merely,  but  as  teachers.  I  was 
not  surprised  to  find,  that,  a  few  months  before  the 
Proclamation  of  Emancipation,  a  letter  had  gone  to 
Washington,  from  President  Finney,  entreating  Mr. 


AN   APPENDIX.  387 

Lincoln  to  ''recognize  the  hand  of  the  Lord  in  this 
matter."  In  Oberlin,  it  is  believed  to  have  substan- 
tially modified  the  proclamation.  Oberlin  sent  eight 
hundred  and  fifty  men  into  the  field  during  the  rebel- 
lion. Professor  Peck,  our  minister  to  Hayti,  is  the  man 
who  was  once  imprisoned  by  slave-hunters  in  Cleve- 
land jail.  An  indignant  mass-meeting  was  held  in  that 
city.  Six  hundred  sabbath-school  children  went  from 
Oberlin  to  greet  their  imprisoned  superintendent,  and 
the  prosecuting  attorney  thought  it  best  to  give  up  the 
case.  Professor  Monroe,  married  to  a  daughter  of 
President  Finney,  is  our  consul  at  Rio,  and  is  well 
known  as  a  controlling  political  power  in  Ohio. 
One  of  the  faculty  headed  the  first  Oberhn  regiment; 
a  graduate  of  the  Theological  School,  the  second; 
Colonel  Cooper,  of  the  third,  who  went  through  with 
Sherman,  is  still  doing  antislavery  work  in  Arkansas; 
and  the  present  Governor  of  Ohio,  Major-General 
Cox,  also  married  to  a  daughter  of  Mr.  Finney,  has 
a  record  so  briUiant,  that  it  demands  a  volume  in 
itself. 

During  the  war,  the  college  realized  one  unexpected 
advantage  from  the  presence  of  women.  The  female 
pupils  kept  the  college  working!  In  the  original  con- 
stitution of  Oberlin,  it  was  stated  that  its  main  object 
was  "to  diffuse  pure  religion  throughout  the  Missis- 
sippi Valley,  and  to  elevate  the  female  character." 
To  both  these  objects  it  has  been  religiously  faithful. 
In  the  Ladies'  Library  Room  I  saw  a  picture  of  Camp 
Dennison.     It  was  drawn  by  one  of  the  graduates; 


388  TEN  years: 

was  sent  from  camp  to  college,  with  the  inscription 
beneath,  ''From  the  boys  at  Camp  Dennison  to  the 
girls  of  '61, — the  dearest  girls  in  all  the  world."  It 
was  not  put  out  of  sight,  but  proudly  shown  to  me. 
I  have  never  been  in  any  educational  institution  where 
the  interests  of  the  pupils  so  evidently  rule.  The  va- 
cation comes  in  winter,  that  the  pupils  may  pass  it  in 
teaching;  but  the  professors  do  not  then  take  a  vaca- 
tion. They  open  a  winter  school,  where  students 
who  are  behindhand  may  make  up  deficiencies.  I 
do  not  mean  that  all  the  pupils  go  through  the  entire 
college  course:  many  cannot  afford  it.  They  stay  as 
long  as  they  can,  and  go  reluctantly  away. 

They  follow  the  fashions  at  Oberlin:  the  Conti- 
nental pronunciation  took  possession  of  the  Greek 
and  Latin  class-rooms  last  year.  They  employ  un- 
dergraduates to  teach  the  preparatory  students  at 
thirty  cents  an  hour.  The  common  or  town  school 
has  830  pupils,  180  of  whom  are  colored.  In  the  col- 
lege, the  colored  pupils  are  5  to  100,  and  the  female 
pupils  40  oi^t  of  50.  There  are  scarcely  any  rules. 
The  few  that  are  printed  are  enforced  as  friendly  ad- 
vice. President  Finney  says  he  has  often  known  a 
year  to  pass  without  an  opportunity  for  a  presidential 
admonition.  The  management  of  the  girls  seems  to 
me  admirable.  The  teachers  feel  no  doubt  of  their 
method;  therefore  they  show  none.  Once  a  fortnight 
the  lady  principal  meets  the  ladies,  and  talks  with 
them  privately  on  all  questions  of  womanly  habits 
and  manners.     The  splendid  endowment  of  Vassar 


AN   APPENDIX.  389 

College  could  not  give  to  Oberlin  a  woman  better 
suited  to  this  purpose  than  Mrs.  Dascomb.  Once  a 
week  there  is  a  religious  meeting. 

The  college  has  just  now  the  brightest  prospects. 
Its  old  buildings  were  far  less  convenient  than  those 
at  Antioch;  but  at  a  late  Commencement  an  appeal 
was  made,  and  by  a  spasmodic  response,  like  that 
which  recently  gave  us  $30,000  for  Meadville,  the 
graduates  subscribed  as  much  for  a  new  ''Ladies' 
Hall."  The  contracts  were  made  before  the  war,  the 
expenses  managed  with  scrupulous  prudence;  and 
now  a  beautiful  brick  building,  121  feet  by  121,  is 
opened.  It  has  a  library,  reading-room,  and  parlors; 
and  a  dining-hall,  to  which  the  male  students  are 
admitted,  and  where  truly  excellent  board  is  given 
for  three  dollars  a  week.  The  kitchen  would  do 
anybody's  heart  good.  On  every  floor  is  a  wood 
and  water  room,  where  the  wood  and  ashes  go  up  and 
down  on  a  dumb-waiter,  where  water  is  carried  up  in 
a  well-protected  pipe,  and  slops  may  be  thrown  into 
a  sink.  Two  excellent  new  buildings  for  recitations 
will  be  ready  for  the  spring  term.  Some  idea  of  the 
admirable  tact  and  prudence  which  have  prevailed  at 
Oberlin  may  be  gleaned  from  the  following  anecdote : 
Thirty-three  years  passed  before  a  colored  teacher  was 
employed  in  the  Preparatory  School.  "We  knew," 
said  President  Fair  child,  ''that  we  must  not  try  the 
experiment  till  it  was  sure  to  be  a  magnificent  suc- 
cess." In  1865,  Oberlin  had  in  Miss  Fanny  Jackson 
a  pupil  worthy  of  the  experiment.     She  had  been  a 


390  TEN  years: 

slave  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  so  puny,  that 
at  an  early  age,  she  was  sold  to  her  own  aunt,  a  freed- 
woman,  for  a  trivial  sum.  She  was  sent  here,  and 
with  fear  and  trembling  now  yielded  to  the  wish  of 
the  president.  That  no  one  might  be  compelled  to 
enter  her  class,  two  advanced  classes  in  English  gram- 
mar were  organized,  one  under  the  present  wife  of 
Dr.  Finney.  On  the  first  day,  an  over-grown  lad 
came  to  the  president,  and  said,  ''My  father  would 
not  like  it  very  well  if  he  knew  I  was  taught  by  a 
woman, — but  a  woman  and  a  negro!"  ''Stay  in 
the  class  three  days  to  please  me,"  said  the  president; 
and,  at  the  end  of  that  time,  the  boy  refused  to  be 
removed.  After  a  day's  absence  from  illness,  Miss 
Jackson  was  received  with  cheers;  and,  when  her  class 
had  to  be  subdivided,  the  heart-burnings  of  those 
who  had  to  leave  it  were  pitiable.  She  is  now  teach- 
ing in  the  Colored  High  School  in  Philadelphia,  where 
she  will  remain  till  she  has  paid  the  price  of  her  free- 
dom. The  brilliancy  of  her  classical  teaching  is  con- 
sidered very  remarkable  in  Philadelphia. 

It  remains  only  to  consider  the  double  system. 
Everybody  at  Oberlin  was  loud  in  its  praise;  no  one 
would  teach  now  in  any  other  sort  of  college.  The 
presence  of  women  secured  discipline.  There  was  no 
chance  for  "  hazing  "  or  any  other  antiquated  folly.  Pu- 
pils and  teachers  who  had  gone  from  Oberlin  to  Vassar 
both  missed  the  pleasant  excitement  of  the  old  life. 

"But,"  said  President  Finney,  when  I  turned  from 
all  the  rest  to  him,  "it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  we 


AN   APPENDIX.  391 

have  had  great  advantages.  We  came  here  for  a 
religious  reason;  our  pupils  came  for  years.  It  is  only 
lately  that  they  have  been  sent.  I  expect  that  some 
difficulties  may  arise,  but  none  worse  than  would 
arise  in  a  neighborhood-school.  It  is  God's  way  to 
rear  us."  The  old  man  showed  me,  with  great  emo- 
tion, a  confession,  signed  by  three  young  girls,  and 
read  at  college  prayers  in  1837.  They  had  been  walk- 
ing, and  met  one  of  the  students  with  an  improvised 
sledge;  without  thinking,  they  jumped  on  and  took  a 
drive.  There  were  no  rules  against  it;  but,  when  they 
came  home,  they  remembered  how  much  depended  on 
their  prudence  as  members  of  an  antislavery  institu- 
tion, and  wrote  the  confession  of  their  own  accord. 
One  of  these  lovely  women  is  now  the  wife  of  Presi- 
dent Fairchild. 

I  record  with  pride  the  history  of  Oberlin,  the  first 
college  which  undertook  to  teach  resident  pupils  of 
both  sexes.  I  feel  that  it  has  been  a  great  success. 
I  am  ashamed  of  the  half-denominational  prejudice 
which  kept  me  from  taking  a  warmer  interest  in  it, 
in  advance;  and  I  greet  its  new  life  under  President 
Fairchild,  a  graduate  of  the  institution,  with  the  warm- 
est feelings  of  hope  and  admiration. 

It  has  just  received  $25,000  from  the  executors  of 
the  estate  of  the  Rev.  Charles  Avery,  of  Pittsburg, 
who  left  $150,000  in  trust,  to  be  devoted,  according 
to  the  best  judgment  of  the  directors,  to  the  "educa- 
tion and  elevation  of  the  colored  people  in  the  United 
States  and  Canadas."     The  conditions  are,  that  the 


392  TEN  years: 

college  shall  never  make  any  discrimination,  on  ac- 
count of  color,  against  colored  students,  and  that  it 
shall  furnish  free  tuition  to  fifty  of  its  most  needy 
colored  students  who  may  apply  for  it;  preference 
being  given  to  twenty  to  be  nominated  by  the  Ameri- 
can Missionary  Association, 

ANTIOCH. 

The  road  to  Antioch  is  hard  to  find:  indeed,  it 
would  seem  as  if  the  trustees  had  specially  secluded 
it, — made  interest,  perhaps,  with  the  railroads  to 
prevent  the  cars  from  stopping  there,  for  the  special 
protection  of  the  young  people!  From  Cincinnati, 
we  wind  along  the  lovely  banks  of  the  little  Miami, 
through  nurseries  and  hillside  terraces,  through  groves 
of  oak  and  sycamore,  and  birch-trees  stretching  out 
white,  bewildered  arms.  Pigs  are  quietly  grazing  in 
the  woods,  as  if  it  were  their  nature  to  ''chew  the 
cud;"  there  are  groups  of  tiny  powder-houses,  made 
small,  the  people  say,  because  they  are  ''expected  to 
blow  up  once  a  fortnight"!  Heavy  loads  of  corn  and 
hay  wind  along  the  terraced  roads;  a  gay-looking 
negro  on  horseback  takes  off  his  hat;  two  children  are 
pulling  a  boat  across  the  Miami;  there  are  no  houses 
along  the  shore,  only  safe-looking  spits  of  sand  jut 
out  here  and  there;  and,  at  last,  having  come  the  ten 
miles  from  Xenia  in  a  private  carriage,  we  roll  on  to 
Antioch  Plain.  I  had  heard  that  the  college  was 
on  high  land;  so  I  was  a  little  disappointed  to  find  it 
on  a  table  among  the  hills,  which  did  not  command 


AN    APPENDIX.  393 

any  marvellous  extent  of  country.  As  for  the  col- 
lege, it  has  evidently  made  its  toilet  for  posterity.  I 
could  not  get  a  glimpse  of  its  two  fine  towers  and 
broad  front,  till  I  wandered  down  to  the  railroad 
track,  and  looked  at  it  from  the  vicinity  of  a  lime- 
kiln and  a  sorghum-mill.  For  some  unknown  reason, 
it  turned  its  back  on  the  village  in  the  beginning,  and 
pranks  its  beauty  in  full  sight  of  that  cursive  popula- 
tion which  travels  by  steam. 

Yellow  Springs  is  a  pretty  little  place  to  live  in, — 
an  economical  one,  certainly,  for  there  isn't  a  thing 
in  it  to  buy;  and,  when  we  have  looked  at  two  or 
three  little  churches  and  Judge  Mills's  pretty  park, 
we  are  quite  content  to  go  through  the  grounds  of  the 
Yellow  Springs  House,  look  down  on  the  glen  from 
the  quaint,  long,  low  southern  piazza  of  the  Neff 
House,  and  finally  get  home  as  we  may,  by  log-bridges, 
and  banks  of  moss,  over  which  the  walking-fern  is 
striding.  Ten  miles  of  hedge,  made  of  the  Osage 
orange,  surround  the  Neff  Place,  which  a  wealthy 
family  in  Cincinnati  refuse  to  sell;  but  which  is  des- 
tined, in  the  far  future,  for  a  large  hotel.  In  the  little 
glen, — where  a  beautiful  cascade  falls,  and  tortuous 
rapids  sputter  and  foam,  and  tiny  fish  dart  up  -and 
down,  and  great  graceful  trees  bend  to  shelter  us, — 
we  may  find  all  the  beauty  of  the  White-Mountain 
passes.  Two  or  three  miles  off,  there  are  persimmons 
in  the  woods,  and  fossils  under  the  soil;  and,  on  Sat- 
urdays, pleasant  parties  go  with  Mr.  Orton  or  Pro- 
fessor Clarke  to  find  them.     The  ''Yellow  Spring,'" 


394  TEN  years: 

which  gives  the  town  its  name,  is  of  course  largely 
impregnated  with  iron.  It  is  imprisoned  in  a  stone 
tank,  which  it  colors  brown;  and  it  changes  a  rusty 
iron  ladle  to  gold.  It  is  a  tonic;  and,  not  far  from  the 
spot  where  it  bubbles  up,  there  is  a  pretty  summer- 
house,  where  those  who  come  to  drink  may  sit  and 
rest.  As  we  walked  toward  it,  a  little  brown  rabbit 
skipped  across  the  grass.  From  every  high  point  in 
the  glen,  there  are  lovely  views  of  the  college  and 
town. 

Dr.  Hosmer  has  just  introduced  a  change  into  the 
Sunday-morning  service  at  the  chapel.  He  has  taken 
the  service-book  of  James  Freeman  Clarke,  and,  be- 
tween reading  and  chanting,  devised  a  matin  service 
of  great  beauty.  No  musical  professors  could  have 
done  greater  credit  to  the  first  performance  than  the 
students  themselves.  It  made  the  bare,  whitewashed 
walls  of  the  chapel  seem  as  sacred  as  a  grand  cathe- 
dral. 

I  did  not  look  into  the  books  at  Antioch.  Those 
at  Oberlin  I  thoroughly  investigated;  and  the  strict 
economy  the  figures  showed  would  distinguish  hon- 
orably any  institution  in  any  land.  But,  as  far  as  I 
can  judge  from  oral  testimony,  the  fees  of  the  stu- 
dents and  the  interest  of  the  endowment  fund  here 
amount  to  $13,000,  and  do  not  quite  provide  for  the 
annual  expenses.  There  is,  therefore,  no  fund  for 
repairs,  none  for  scientific  instruments,  none  for  the 
library;  and,  while  the  president  and  professors  feel 
that  a  further  endowment  will  sometime  be  needed, 


AN   APPENDIX.  395 

— nay,  is  needed  now, — yet  they  also  feel  that  they 
must  show  what  work  Antioch  can  do,  before  they  ask 
further  sympathy.  Still,  there  are  some  few  things 
which  the  wise  prudence  of  the  trustees,  the  thought- 
fulness  of  loving  friends,  the  surplus  of  full  purses,  can, 
in  a  quiet  way,  provide. 

The  pupils  at  Antioch  make  no  complaint  of  their 
commons  this  year;  yet  it  is  undeniable  that  they 
should  be  better  than  they  are.  The  commons  are 
provided  at  Oberlin  and  Antioch  in  the  same  way; 
that  is,  by  a  family  entirely  disconnected  with  the  col- 
lege. At  Oberlin,  the  table  presents  an  attractive 
appearance.  It  would  be  grateful  to  any  hungry  per- 
son, and  board  is  furnished  at  $3  a  week.  At  An- 
tioch, a  pleasant  and  friendly  woman  has  charge  of 
things ;  but  no  ,great  variety  seems  to  be  offered,  and 
the  board  is  $3.50  per  week.  Both  these  prices  seem 
to  me,  after  investigating  Western  markets,  starvation 
prices;  but  it  is  evident,  that,  on  this  point,  we  have 
something  to  learn  from  Oberlin.  If  the  president 
and  faculty  of  Antioch  should  visit  Oberlin,  where  they 
would  be  most  kindly  received,  they  would  see,  per- 
haps, that  the  difficulty  lies  in  the  cooking-apparatus. 
Oberlin  offers  a  first-rate  kitchen;  Antioch,  one  very 
far  behind  what  most  of  the  pupils  would  find  at 
home.  I  suppose  no  one  will  deny,  that,  when  the 
average  social  standing  of  the  students  in  these  West- 
ern colleges  is  considered,  it  is  desirable  that  they, 
should  find  at  the  college-table  a  standard  of  cooking 
and  serving  which  is  a  little  in  advance  of  that  to 


396  TEN  years: 

which  they  have  been  used.  The  food  may  be  plain 
and  without  variety,  but  it  should  be  thoroughly  nice 
and  inviting  of  its  kind.  The  ladies  of  any  one  of  our 
city  churches  might  undertake  to  furnish  the  kitchen 
at  Antioch,  and  they  could  not  have  a  better  model 
than  the  kitchen  at  Oberlin,  To  advance  the  stand- 
ard over  previous  experience,  is,  I  think,  a  necessary 
part  of  education  here. 

Still  farther,  cisterns  should  be  built  in  the  upper 
stories  of  the  dormitories,  into  which  the  waste-water 
may  run  from  the  roofs.  Pipes  leading  downward 
from  this  should  supply  one  sink  on  each  story,  and 
this  sink  should  also  carry  away  the  waste-water  from 
the  rooms.  A  large  '^dumb  waiter" — I  use  the 
word  for  want  of  a  better — should  be  provided  in 
each  domitory  to  carry  up  wood,  and  carry  down 
ashes  and  dry  dirt.  I  have  already  shown  that  this 
is  done  at  Oberlin;  and,  if  cisterns  are  not  possible, 
then  reservoirs  and  a  forcing-pump  should  take  their 
place. 

There  are  but  two  dormitories, — one  for  men,  and 
one  for  women;  and  when  we  consider,  that,  beside 
studying,  the  pupils  have  to  help  themselves  by  saw- 
ing wood  and  other  manual  labor,  it  will  be  acknowl- 
edged, that  to  bring  their  own  wood  and  water  up 
two  or  three  flights  of  stairs  is  more  than  we  can  ask 
of  them. 

The  library  and  scientific  apparatus  are  very  defi- 
cient for  present  needs.  In  the  scientific  department, 
some  means  of  protecting  the  apparatus  already  ob- 


AN   APPENDIX.  397 

tained  is  greatly  wanted.  Microscopes  are  needed  for 
scientific  investigation.  In  the  library,  a  translation 
of  the  ''M^canique  Celeste,"  modern  scientific  books 
generally,  Smith's  ''Bible  Dictionary,"  and  the  leading 
works  on  English  literature,  are  required.  Trench, 
Miiller,  Taine,  have  not  yet  found  their  way  to  Yel- 
low Springs.* 

It  seems  to  me,  that,  before  Antioch,  there  now  opens 
a  great  career.  If  her  trustees  and  her  faculty  will 
but  keep  faith  in  her  methods,  surely  we  are  bound  to 
help  them  to  the  utmost.  The  personal  friends  of  Dr. 
Hosmer  also,  who  realize  the  nobility  of  that  enthu- 
siasm which  made  him  willing  to  accept  such  a  post 
while  ''looking  towards  sunset,"  ought,  I  think,  to 
make  the  position  as  easy  as  possible,  by  anticipating 
these  practical  wants.  Five  hundred  dollars  would 
supply  the  most  necessary  books  to  the  library. 

But,  if  Oberlin  does  such  noble  work,  what  need  of 
Antioch?  Why  should  we  strive  to  sustain  an  insti- 
tution at  such  a  continual  cost,  if  one  already  estab- 
lished is  competent  to  do  its  work?  Let  us  get  a 
glimpse  of  what  Antioch  can  do,  and  then  we  shall 
be  better  able  to  answer  these  questions.  In  the  first 
place,  we  are  in  possession  of  buildings  worth  now 
$180,000,  and  of  twenty  acres  of  land,  worth  $10,000. 
The  land  was  a  donation,  in  the  beginning,  from 
Judge  Mills,  the  great  man  of  the  village,  who  per- 
haps fancied  that  a  growing  college  would  increase 

*  These  have  been  supplied  since  my  return  to  Boston. 


398  TEN  years: 

the  value  of  his  real  estate;  and  for  this  property, 
worth  now  nearly  $200,000,  we  gave  $50,000.  For 
its  proper  appropriation  we  are  responsible;  and  I 
think  we  have  work  enough  to  do,  though  Oberlin 
has  saved  the  North-west,  and  though  her  new  halls 
should  be  crowded  thrice  over. 

In  the  first  place,  Antioch  is  to  be  a  missionary 
station.  No  one  who  has  not  travelled  through  the 
West  can  imagine  the  thirst  of  the  people  for  spirit- 
ual food.  I  think  those  who  know  least  about  it  are 
the  Western  ministers  themselves.  I  always  found 
them  sceptical  about  it,  when  I  spoke  to  them;  and 
I  could  not  very  well  say,  what  I  was  sometimes  com- 
pelled to  feel,  ''It  is  because  you  could  never  satisfy 
this  want,  that  it  does  not  show  itself  to  you."  To 
Dr.  Hosmer,  however,  with  his  warm,  genial  soul, 
with  a  temper  conciliatory  and  discreet,  the  people  are 
willing  to  speak.  Beside  the  daily  college  prayers, 
there  are  services  in  the  chapel  on  Sunday  at  half -past 
eight  in  the  morning,  and  at  three  in  the  afternoon. 
During  the  last  year,  the  audiences  at  the  Sunday 
preaching  had  dwindled  to  a  score:  since  Dr.  Hos- 
mer's  arrival,  it  averages  about  two  hundred  and  fifty; 
and,  of  course,  townspeople,  who  come  to  the  chapel 
regularly,  grow  in  sympathy  with  the  college  and  its- 
purposes.  Dr.  Hosmer  has  promised  to  supply  the 
Christian  pulpit  in  Yellow  Springs  for  eight  Sundays, 
which  gives  Mr.  McConnell  liberty  to  do  missionary 
work  for  the  same  time.  The  little  town  of  Troy  has 
some  difficulty  in  keeping  a  minister.     Dr.  Hosmer 


AN    APPENDIX.  399 

promises  him  four  Sundays,  that  he  may  go  away, 
and  so  add  to  his  substance.  He  goes  also  himself 
to  the  Universalist  church  in  Columbus;  and  at 
Cleveland,  where  about  twenty  Unitarian  families 
are  hoping  sometime  to  have  a  church,  he  promises 
them  an  occasional  service  if  they  will  pay  the  ex- 
penses of  transit.  Professor  Hosmer,  whose  preach- 
ing is  thoroughly  appreciated  in  the  neighborhood, 
has  also  preached  in  Marietta;  and  either  he  or  his 
father  stands  ready  to  supply  Mr.  Mayo's  pulpit 
when  that  gentleman  undertakes  the  missionary 
work,  which  has  already  made  him  one  of  the  most 
useful  of  the  Western  clergy. 

Who  are  the  people  that  have  this  college  in 
charge?  What  sort  of  pupils  are  likely  to  benefit  by 
the  education  we  offer?  If  we  know  a  little  about 
them,  perhaps  it  will  kindle  a  warmer  interest.  Be- 
side the  two  Hosmers  whom  we  know,  there  is  Dr. 
Craig,  Professor  Weston  and  his  wife.  Professor 
Clark,  and  Mr.  Orton,  with  four  teachers  under  him 
in  the  preparatory  department.  Dr.  Craig  was  the 
man  whom  Horace  Mann  thought  it  constituted  an 
era  in  his  life  to  know.  For  fifteen  years  he  was  the 
minister  of  the  church  at  Blooming  Grove,  Orange 
County,  N.  Y.,  a  church  which  has  existed  for  more 
than  a  hundred  years  without  a  creed,  and  which  is 
governed  by  seven  deacons  and  seven  deaconesses. 
Professor  Weston  and  his  wife  divide  the  classical 
department  between  them,  having  both  taken  the 
degree  of  A.M.  at  Antioch. 


400  TEN  years: 

Professor  Clark  is  the  son  of  the  famous  Metho- 
dist minister  in  Chicago.  He  was  professor  of  math- 
ematics in  Michigan  University,  and  went  abroad 
for  two  years  to  fit  himself  more  thoroughly  for  his 
work.  The  war  called  him  home;  he  raised  a  com- 
pany, was  made  major,  and,  being  taken  prisoner, 
was  thrown  into  Libby.  There,  he  says,  one  of  our 
Boston  boys  saved  his  life  by  sharing  his  supplies 
with  him.  He  was  removed  to  Macon,  and,  while 
sharing  all  the  horrible  experience  of  the  stockade, 
succeeded  in  digging  a  tunnel,  through  which  he 
would  have  escaped;  but  some  other  prisoners  doing 
the  same  thing,  and  the  escape  of  one  being  sure  to 
lead  to  the  detection  of  all,  he  waited  honorably  for 
the  second  tunnel  to  be  completed.  Meanwhile  he 
was  removed  to  Charleston,  and  put  under  Gilmore's 
fire,  where,  at  last,  his  exchange  was  effected.  When 
Professor  Clark  left  Michigan  University  to  come  to 
Antioch,  he  made  a  sacrifice  born  of  the  true  mis- 
sionary spirit.  May  we  share  his  spirit  sufficiently 
to  strengthen  his  hands  in  the  new  work!  Mr.  Orton 
is  most  admirably  fitted  to  his  department,  and  has 
an  excellent  corps  of  teachers  under  him.  Among 
them  is  one,  the  daughter  of^a  mechanic,  that  went 
from  Worcester  to  assist  in  building  the  college,  who 
got  her  own  education  at  Antioch  by  alternate  years 
of  study  and  teaching,  having  to  earn  one  year  what 
she  spent  the  next.  A  more  exquisite  model  school 
than  that  connected  with  the  college,  I  never  saw. 

Among  the  older  pupils  of  Antioch  is  the  Christian 


AN   APPENDIX.  401 

minister  of  Yellow  Springs,  the  Mr.  McConnell  of 
whom  I  spoke,  who  may  be  called,  if  you  prefer  it,  a 
brigadier-general.  He  was  born  humbly,  in  Ohio, 
had  only  the  rudest  schooling,  was  a  Christian  minis- 
ter before  he  was  twenty,  and  married  before  he  was 
twenty-one.  He  was  preaching  in  Troy  when  the 
first  gun  was  fired  at  Sumter. '  He  raised  a  company 
at  once,  and  got  a  lieutenant's  commission.  In  actual 
service,  he  was  soon  made  a  captain.  He  kept  with 
General  Grant  throughout  his  Western  campaign, 
and  returned  from  Pittsburg  Landing  the  colonel  of 
his  regiment;  then  re-enlisted  for  the  war,  went 
back  to  the  front,  kept  with  the  Western  army,  and, 
at  the  close  of  the  war,  was  mustered  out  a  brigadier- 
general.  He  did  signal  service  in  many  battles,  but 
especially  before  Nashville,  where  his  brigade,  assisted 
by  a  negro  brigade,  broke  Hood's  centre  by  a  very 
gallant  charge.  He  went  to  Atlanta  with  Sherman, 
and  could  never  weary  of  telling  me  how  the  Sanitary 
and  Educational  Commission  followed  the  army  with 
their  fostering  care,  ever  present,  it  seemed  to  him, 
like  the  blood  which  supplies  with  food  the  minutest 
nervous  fibre  of  the  human  frame.  When  he  returned, 
the  people  would  have  carried  him  into  Congress;  but 
he  declined.  Then  they  offered  to  make  him  a  judge 
of  probate,  with  a  salary  of  $2,500  a  year;  but  he  told 
them  he  had  chosen  the  pulpit  for  his  field:  and  now, 
preaching  in  Yellow  Springs,  he  comes  into  the  col- 
lege classes,  and,  hoping  to  take  his  degree,  keeps 
faithfully  all  the  college  rules. 

30 


402  TEN  years: 

Still  another  pupil,  now  thirty  years  old,  raised  a 
company  for  the  war.  He  was  at  the  fall  of  Vicks- 
burg,  had  not  been  at  school  since  he  was  ten  years 
old,  but  made  $1,800  by  buying  and  selling  grain,  and 
brought  it  here  to  carry  him  through  college.  When 
I  cross-examined  him  in  Greek  history,  I  found  he 
had  read  Grote!  The  teacher  of  the  village  school  at 
Yellow  Springs  has  had  a  more  vexatious  experience. 
He  had  finished  his  third  year  at  Antioch,  when  he 
went  into  the  army.  He  became  an  aid  to  three 
Western  generals  successively,  and  was  with  Grant 
when  Lee  surrendered.  He  saved  $300  of  his  pay  to 
carry  him  through  -his  last  college  year,  but  had  only 
been  home  a  few  days  when  a  burglar  stole  it!  He 
has  taken  the  village  school  for  $900  this  year,  studies 
hard;  and  the  faculty  have  voted,  that,  when  he  can 
stand  a  certain  examination,  he  shall  take  his  degree. 

It  is  for  such  students  that  Antioch  is  open.  One- 
third  of  her  present  pupils  are  women.  Pleasant 
levees  are  held  once  a  fortnight  at  the  president's 
house,  where  the  two  sexes  mingle  gracefully.  The 
girls  have  a  literary  society,  which  they  call  the  Cres- 
cent; the  young  men,  two  societies,  the  Star  and  the 
Adelphian.  The  Star  and  the  Crescent  have  fitted  up 
one  room  under  the  gambrel  very  tastefully.  The 
Adelphians  rival  them.  The  folding-doors  in  the  hall 
of  the  latter  society  open  into  a  pretty  alcove,  where 
a  good  library  is  beginning.  These  two  rooms  are 
the  only  glimpse  of  tasteful,  home-like  comfort  that 
one  gets  in  any  public  room  at  Antioch.     I  attended 


AN    APPENDIX.  403 

the  meetings  of  the  three  societies.  Before  the 
Crescents,  I  heard  a  graceful  little  essay  on  ''A 
Rail-fence,"  from  a  girl  of  fifteen.  From  the  Stars, 
I  heard  a  discussion  of  Roman  funerals.  The  Adel- 
phians  discussed  the  possibility  of  obeying  an  un- 
righteous law,  very  much  as  I  have  heard  their  elders 
do  in  Congress.  Each  society  had  a  censor,  who  took 
notes  of  papers  and  discussions,  and  quietly  criticised 
each  performance  when  it  ended.  It  was  noticeable, 
that  the  performances  of  the  women,  making  due 
allowance  for  age  and  opportunity,  were  far  more 
graceful  and  able  than  those  of  the  men,  and  a  most 
valuable  help  to  the  latter.  Coming  home  one  night 
from  the  Adelphians,  I  found  at  Dr.  Hosmer's  a 
Southern  refugee,  who  is  educating  her  children  at 
Antioch. 

Sometime  before  the  war,  Mrs.  Palmer  and  her 
husband  went  to  East  Tennessee  from  New  York, 
carrying  with  them  $50,000.  I  think  they  must  have 
opened  a  store;  for  she  spoke  of  having  on  hand  a 
valuable  stock  of  millinery  and  medicines.  Being 
Northerners,  they  were  constantly  threatened,  and  at 
last  consented  to  barricade  their  house.  Three  times 
the  rebels  stole  their  horse,  a  colt  only  two  years  old; 
and  three  times  Mrs.  Palmer's  perseverance  got  it 
back.  At  last  they  surrounded  the  house  at  night, 
firing  on  the  peaceable  inmates;  and  Mr.  Palmer,  at- 
tempting to  escape  over  the  roof,  got  three  bullets  in 
his  arm.  The  next  day  the  party  came  back,  robbed 
the  house,  and  burned  up  the  stores.     The  medicine 


404  TEN  years: 

was  a  great  loss:  there  was  no  more  within  reach  for 
rebel  or  loyalist.  Mrs.  Palmer  succeeded  in  hiding 
her  meat  and  meal.  For  eight  days  she  and  her 
family  hid  in  the  rocks,  only  venturing  back  to  the 
house  at  night  to  cook  and  eat  a  little  food.  One 
night,  when  the  poor  wife  was  so  employed,  her  fever- 
ish, half-delirious  husband  followed  her,  and,  in  some 
way,  attracted  the  attention  of  the  enemy.  A  terrible 
battle  followed,  and  Mr.  Palmer  lay  on  the  kitchen 
floor  with  eight  wounds  in  his  body.  When  the  mal- 
ice of  the  rebels  was  spent,  Mrs.  Palmer  went  out 
with  her  children,  and  called  the  cattle.  By  keeping 
them  between  her  and  the  house,  she  succeeded  in 
getting  her  husband  into  the  woods.  A  Union  man 
finally  received  and  fed  him;  but  it  was  many  days 
before  his  wounds  could  be  dressed.  She  then  es- 
caped with  her  children  and  the  colt,  on  which  they 
rode  by  turns.  She  had  picked  up  some  of  the  ends 
of  her  burnt  millinery,  which  she  used  to  barter  for 
food  as  they  went  along.  She  came  at  last  to  an 
old  school-house,  where  she  lay  down;  and  here  she 
nursed  her  children  through  the  measles.  Here,  after 
many  weeks,  her  husband  came  to  see  her,  but  was 
taken  prisoner  as  he  crept  away,  and  was  sent  to 
Libby.  She  saw  many  terrible  things  while  she  lin- 
gered here:  one  of  her  neighbors  had  his  bowels  cut 
out  while  he  was  still  alive!  When  she  started 
afresh,  she  had  seven  hundred  miles  to  travel  before 
she  reached  Bardstown.  One  of  her  five  children  ul- 
timately died  of  the  fatigue  and  hunger. 


AN    APPENDIX.  405 

''How  did  you  get  food?"  I  asked. 

"I  prayed  for  it,"  she  answered;  ''and  I  always  felt 
sure  enough  for  the  hour." 

"Who  would  shelter  you?"  I  continued. 

"I  never  lay  out  but  one  night,"  she  answered.  "I 
used  to  tell  them,  wherever  I  went,  that  the  Union 
soldiers  must  win  in  the  end;  that  I  was  going  to 
them,  and  would  report  whoever  used  me  ill.  So  they 
would  let  me  lie  on  the  kitchen  floor."  At  Bardstown, 
Morgan's  men  destroyed  her  last  thing;  and  then  a 
United-States  sutler  found  her,  and  carried  her  to 
Louisville. 

The  children  of  many  such  women  will  hereafter 
seek  Antioch.  Let  them  find  there  a  generous  pro- 
vision. 

VASSAR   COLLEGE. 

Mr.  Vassar's  magnificent  donation  is  drawing  in- 
terest at  last;  and,  though  I  do  not  feel  as  much  con- 
fidence in  any  institution  founded  for  women  alone 
as  I  do  in  mixed  colleges,  we  ought  all  to  be  grateful 
for  the  advanced  standard  lifted  at  Poughkeepsie. 

Malt  has  always  been  a  beneficent  agent  in  the 
civilization  of  mankind.  Ever  since  Mr.  Thralo 
looked  kindly  on  old  Sam  Johnson,  brewers  have 
seemed  to  have  a  generous  pride  in  conquering 
human  selfishness,  and  leaving  something  better  than 
a  family  of  children  to  interest  posterity.  Mr.  John 
Guy,  of  Liverpool,  a  wealthy  brewer  without  chil- 
dren, founded  there  the  great  "Guy's  Hospital."  He 
was  the  great-uncle  of  Matthew  Vassar,  also  a  great 


406  TEN  years: 

brewer  in  Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y.  By  and  by,  Matthew 
Vassar  faund  his  property  close  upon  a  million;  and, 
as  he  had  no  children,  he  began  to  think  what  he 
should  do  with  it.  He  had  a  good  many  poor  re- 
lations, and  those  who  were  industrious  and  deserving 
he  did  not  forget.  One  of  them,  a  young  niece,  sup- 
ported herself  by  school-teaching.  He  built  her  a 
school-house,  and  did  what  he  thought  right  to  ease 
her  way.  At  last,  sinking  in  a  decline,  she  came  home 
to  die.  As  she  lay  on  the  sofa,  day  after  day,  she 
watched  him  walking  back  and  forth,  and  talking  over 
his  plans.  Now  and  then  she  would  say  gently, 
''Uncle  Matthew,  do  something  for  women."  After 
she  was  gone,  Matthew  Vassar  went  to  see  Guy's 
Hospital.  His  connections  advised  him  not  to  give 
away  his  money.  His  Baptist  friends  in  Edinburgh 
and  Liverpool  laughed  at  the  idea  of  a  college  for 
women,  which  had  already  entered  his  mind.  He 
came  home,  and  tried  to  plan  a  hospital;  he  got  up, 
and  went  to  bed  with  the  idea  uppermost;  but  all  the 
time  he  seemed  to  hear  the  voice  of  his  niece,  "Do 
something  for  women,  Uncle  Matthew."  Mr.  Vassar 
has  two  houses:  one,  in  the  heart  of  Poughkeepsie, 
which  is  opposite  the  brewery,  and,  with  a  long  range 
of  comfortable  outbuildings,  looks  as  steadfast  and 
English  as  ever  Mr.  Thrale's  own  house  could  do;  the 
other,  a  modest  little  country  box,  set  on  a  hill  among 
extensive  grounds,  and  commanding,  from  various 
points,  lovely  views  of  the  town  and  river.  The  pecu- 
liarity of  this  place  is,  that  it  is  ornamented  with  all 


AN   APPENDIX.  407 

manner  of  punchinellos  cut  in  dull  gray  limestone,  and 
leering  or  grinning  from  every  corner  of  the  park.  I 
did  not  find  out  who  was  responsible  for  this  grim 
joke.  In  1860,  Mr.  Vassar,  with  the  humility  and 
common  sense  which  belong  to  his  character,  obtained 
a  charter,  and  called  together  thirty  trustees.  To  them 
he  transferred  more  than  half  his  actual  property. 
When  the  opening  of  the  war  occasioned  the  failure 
of  the  contractors,  he  did  not  draw  back,  but  gladly 
gave  the  additional  $150,000  which  the  increased  ex- 
pense demanded. 

The  building  is  planned  after  the  palace  of  the 
Tuilleries,  having  at  each  end  the  chateau  roof  and 
mansard  windows.  It  is  500  feet  long,  and  170  deep. 
The  only  drawback  to  its  architectural  effect  is  the 
entrance,  which  should  have  been  a  magnificent  double 
stairway,  but  is,  for  the  present,  only  an  ordinary 
private  door.  This  building  stands  in  the  midst  of 
two  hundred  acres  of  lovely  sloping  and  swelling 
land.  To  the  right,  and  quite  visible  at  the  porter's 
lodge,  is  the  gymnasium  and  hippodrome  under  one 
roof;  to  the  left,  the  graceful  observatory,  which  is 
also  the  home  of  Miss  Mitchell  and  her  father. 

In  the  two  wings  of  the  building  with  chateau  roofs 
are  five  private  dwellings,  rented  for  a  moderate  sum 
to  the  resident  professors.  In  the  centre,  just  behind 
the  entrance,  are  the  dining-hall,  the  chapel,  the  art- 
gallery,  and  the  library;  also  the  large  drawing-rooms, 
where  pupils  and  teachers  receive  their  friends,  and 
the  parlor  and  office  of  president  and  principal.     Con- 


408  TEN  years: 

necting  this  centre  with  each  wing,  on  four  floors,  run 
long  corridors  with  sunshine  and  bright  windows  on 
one  side,  and  clusters  of  students'  rooms  and  recita- 
tion-rooms on  the  other.  The  rooms  are  in  pretty 
groups  of  four.  Three  bedrooms  open  into  one  study, 
the  latter  made  pleasant  and  home-like  by  the  united 
treasures  of  the  occupants.  The  music-rooms  are 
"deadened,"  so  that  the  noise  hardly  strays  beyond  the 
walls;  and  the  cabinet,  where  the  students  in  natural 
history  prepare  specimens,  is  full  of  cases  to  preserve 
the  work.  The  best  that  I  can  say  of  the  building 
will  hardly  do  justice  to  the  intention  of  the  founder, 
which  no  one  can  comprehend  who  has  seen  only  such 
institutions  as  Harvard  and  Yale.  There  is  no  occa- 
sion here  to  wish  for  any  thing  which  may  perhaps 
come  when  the  college  is  rich  enough.  Mr.  Vassar's 
intention  was  and  is  to  have  the  endowment  perfect. 
The  building  is  fire-proof,  every  partition  wall  being 
of  solid  brick.  There  are  four  pairs  of  fire-walls,  into 
which  iron  doors  run  on  rollers;  and  between  these 
are  fire-proof  stairways,  always  safe,  even  if  the  wood 
work  should  catch  fire.  There  is  the  physiological 
cabinet,  with  every  thing  for  the  use  of  the  professor, 
including  various  manikins  and  wax  preparations. 
The  library,  chiefly  of  books  of  reference,  holds  three 
thousand  volumes,  to  be  increased  at  the  rate  of  five 
hundred  per  annum,  and  is  also  used  as  a  reading- 
room,  where  newspapers  and  reviews  may  always  be 
found.  The  art-gallery,  purchased  at  an  extra  cost  of 
$20,000,  is  such  as  no  college  in  the  country  possesses. 


AN   APPENDIX.  409 

It  consists  of  good  cppies  in  oil,  fine  water-colors, 
including  six  real  Turners,  large  portfolios  of  original 
sketches,  and  a  perfect  library  of  works  on  art  and 
engravings, — in  all,  about  a  thousand  volumes.  Be- 
sides the  five  hundred  pictures,  this  gallery  contains  a 
few  busts  and  casts;  among  them,  Palmer's  Sappho  in 
marble,  an  ancient  wrought  brazen  shield,  and  speci- 
mens of  ancient  stained  glass.  The  chapel  seats  seven 
hundred  persons,  and  might  hold  a  thousand.  Over 
the  altar  is  a  beautiful  copy  of  the  Dresden  Madonna, 
by  Miss  Church,  of  New  York.  There  is  also  a  fine 
organ. 

The  music-rooms  accommodate  a  ''conservatory'^ 
on  the  Charles  Auchester  plan,  as  well  as  separate 
pupils.     Thirty-two  pianos  are  in  use. 

The  building  on  the  outside  is  laid  with  brick  in 
black  cement,  and  has  dark  stone  trimmings,  which 
prevent  its  glaring  on  the  eye  like  a  new  brick 
building.  To  the  right  is  the  riding-school,  one 
hundred  feet  by  sixty,  where  thirty  horses  are  kept; 
and,  in  the  same  building,  a  gymnastic  hall,  thirty 
feet  by  seventy. 

The  observatory,  eighty  feet  long  and  fifty  high, 
rests  on  the  rock,  as  well  as  the  great  pier.  It  contains 
a  telescope  made  by  Fitz,  whose  focal  length  is  seven- 
teen feet,  and  its  object-glass  is  twelve  and  a  half  inches. 
There  is  also  a  smaller  instrument,  for  the  constant 
use  of  pupils,  and,  on  the  roof,  a  good  comet-seeker. 
There  is  a  beautiful  transit  circle,  made  by  James,  of 
Philadelphia,  which  Miss  Mitchell  considers  invalua- 


410  TEN  years: 

ble  of  its  kind;  and  a  very  perfect  sidereal  clock  and 
chronograph,  from  the  Bonds  of  Boston. 

Between  the  observatory  and  the  riding-school,  four 
hundred  feet  from  the  main  building,  is  the  gas  and 
boiler  building,  from  which  the  college  is  lighted  and 
warmed.  Beside  these,  twenty  miles  of  water-pipe 
travel  up  and  down  the  corridors  to  supply  culinary 
and  domestic  needs.  Let  us  follow  them  into  the 
kitchen,  and  we  shall  find  there  every  possible  conve- 
nience of  a  good  hotel,  to  the  steam-filled  table  on 
which  the  food  is  carved. 

And  now,  the  building  once  ready  for  its  inmates, 
was  Mr.  Vassar  rewarded  for  the  sacrifice  he  had 
made?  for  all  the  time  and  thought  bestowed  on  the 
outfit?  No  one  had  supposed  that  the  school  would 
be  full  when  it  opened  in  September,  1865;  but  there 
were  353  pupils  on  hand  the  first  day,  and  the  work 
of  organizing  was  no  trifle.  When  I  looked  at  the 
teachers  and  principals  in  this  institution,  many  of 
whom  I  had  known  before  visiting  it,  it  seemed  to  me 
that  each  one  had  been  providentially  fitting  for  the 
very  work  Mr.  Vassar  now  offered.  Of  the  thirty  per- 
sons employed,  I  saw  no  one  that  I  should  have  desired 
to  change.  Maria  Mitchell,  Hannah  Lyman,  and  the 
admirable  resident  physician,  Alida  Avery,  are  now 
too  well  known  to  need  any  praise  of  mine.  These 
persons  are  all  of  the  faculty;  and  their  names  indi- 
cate how  liberal  all  the  decisions  of  the  faculty  must 
be.  I  visited  the  institution  at  the  beginning  of  the 
second  year,  in  October,  1866.     It  had  already  outrun 


AN   APPENDIX.  411 

its  bounds.  There  was  talk  of  still  another  dormitory. 
Four  hundred  pupils,  well  born,  well  bred,  in  good 
health,  with  more  than  ordinary  education  (for  the 
tests  are  severe),  and  with  ample  means,  had  come  to 
meet  those  teachers.  They  had  come,  between  the 
ages  of  seventeen  and  twenty-two,  at  the  very  time 
when  society  holds  out  every  attraction.  Vassar  is  no 
charit}^  school.  Its  necessary  fees  amount  to  four 
hundred  dollars;  and  a  girl  should  have  six  hundred 
to  feel  happy  and  at  ease.  It  paid  every  bill  the  first 
year,  but  had  nothing  left  for  repairs  and  additions. 
To  create  a  fund  for  this  purpose,  the  fees  have  been 
increased  to  the  above-named  sum.  When  the  first 
rush  of  pupils  occurred,  Mr.  Vassar  was  almost  dis- 
mayed. ''God  sometimes  gives  great  thoughts  to 
verj'  little  men,"  he  said,  and  trembled;  but,  when  the 
year  came  to  a  close,  he  lifted  his  hands  in  serene 
gratitude.  I  arrived  at  night;  and  the  procession 
filing  past  me  to  enter  the  handsome  dining-hall, 
supported  by  light  pillars,  about  which  were  circular 
stands  for  the  urns,  occupied  seven  minutes.  When 
I  saw  more  than  four  hundred  young  women  seated 
in  groups  of  twenty,  saw  them  bow  their  handsome 
heads  in  sileut  grace, — a  suggestion  which  came,  I 
think,  from  Miss  Mitchell's  Quaker  father, — I  felt  ex- 
cited with  happiness.  After  tea,  I  walked  round  and 
through  the  groups  of  tables;  and  the  bright  faces 
smiled  back  at  me  either  consciousness  or  question. 
When  they  left  the  dining-hall,  they  went  to  the 
chapel,  where  Miss  Lyman  offers  an  evening  prayer, 


412  TEN  years: 

and,  no  gentlemen  being  present,  talks  to  the  ladies 
in  reference  to  all  matters  of  decorum;  a  practice 
I  hope  to  see  followed  at  Antioch.  After  breakfast 
the  next  morning,  I  went  to  President  Raymond's 
short  matin  service,  and  then  walked  over  to  the  ob- 
servatory. There  I  saw  the  graceful  figures  of  the 
girls  bending  to  the  instrument,  as  they  record  the 
spots  on  the  sun.  I  saw  the  daily  diagrams  in  which 
they  had  recorded  the  position  of  these  spots  for  the 
last  year,  and  other  diagrams  of  lunar  eclipses.  '' Wo- 
men make  better  observers  than  men,"  said  old  Mr. 
Mitchell.  ''They  have  more  patience,  more  accuracy. 
I  had  been  observing  thirty  years,  when  Maria  took  it 
up,  and  I  thought,  mebbe,  'twas  only  Maria;  but  it  is 
just  the  same  with  these  girls.  They  do  better  than 
I  did."  I  don't  wonder  Miss  Mitchell  is  proud  of  her 
seventeen  mathematical  astronomers.  She  is  a  tender 
daughter,  as  well  as  a  capable  ''observer;"  and  she 
would  not  come  to  Vassar  without  her  father.  All  the 
girls  come  to  the  white-haired  old  man  with  their  joys 
and  troubles;  and  I  saw  a  letter  from  an  old  pupil  to 
Miss  Mitchell  when  I  was  there,  which  contained  this 
audacious  sentence,  left  to  tell  its  own  story:  "Was 
it  not  good  of  God  to  put  it  into  Mr.  Vassar's  heart 
to  spend  his  whole  fortune  in  making  your  father's 
last  years  perfectly  happy?"  In  the  art  gallery  I  found, 
one  morning,  twenty-five  pupils  copying;  and,  in  the 
musical  conservatory,  one  hundred  and  seventy-five. 
The  gymnasium  was  not  quite  ready  for  use;  so  I 
went  down  to  see  the  girls  rowing  on  the  pretty  lake. 


AN   APPENDIX.  413 

After  school  hours,  the  floral  clubs  were  busy  in  the 
grounds.  I  cannot  say  any  thing  better  of  Professor 
Tenney's  pupils,  than  that  they  work  over  their  spe- 
cimens as  enthusiastically  as  boys.  In  chemical 
analysis,  under  Professor  Farrar,  the  girls  are  greatly 
interested.  The  curriculum  is  such  as  we  find  adopted 
at  all  colleges,  except  that  far  more  time  is  devoted 
to  science  than  is  usual  at  Yale  or  Harvard,  and 
room  is  left  for  music.  Riding,  driving,  rowing 
&c.,  are  extras,  only  allowed  in  the  time  allotted  to 
out-door  exercise.  The  resident  physician.  Dr.  Avery, 
in  whom  the  college  is  conscious  that  it  possesses  a 
great  treasure,  gives  a  regular  course  of  physiological 
lectures. 

Matthew  Vassar  was  seventy-six  years  old  on  the 
29th  of  April,  and  that  day  is  a  perpetual  festival  for 
the  pupils.  Could  you  see  him  meet  the  scholars  in 
the  grounds,  you  would  think  them  all  his  children.  I 
had  interviews  with  the  president,  trustees,  and  the 
teachers;  but  was  most  attracted  toward  this  noble 
old  man.  He  told  me  that  he  meant  to  go  on  endow- 
ing the  college  until  he  died.  "Then,"  he  said,  "I 
shall  leave  nothing  for  executors  to  quarrel  about: 
money  will  be  safe  in  brick  and  stone."  He  asked  me 
to  talk  with  him  about  a  culinary  and  household  col- 
lege for  the  proper  training  of  housewives,  which  he 
still  wishes  to  erect.  His  last  gift  to  the  college  was 
its  magnificent  cabinet  of  stones  and  fossils;  one  of 
the  best.  Professor  Dana  thinks,  that  he  ever  saw. 
Beside  the  beautiful  specimens  shown  under  glass, 


414  TEN  years: 

there  are,  in  drawers  beneath  the  glass  cases,  similar 
specimens  which  may  be  handled. 

In  furnishing  Vassar  College,  no  one  has  had  to 
think  what  any  thing  would  cost.  When  shall  we 
have  an  institution  for  wealthy  persons,  of  both  sexes^ 
with  an  outfit  as  splendid?  It  is  a  sight  which  Ober- 
lin  has  earned  the  right  to  see. 

LAWRENCE   UNIVERSITY,    KANSAS. 

But  a  still  more  interesting  story  is  that  connected 
with  the  establishment  of  the  State  University  in 
Kansas.  Its  name  will  be  seen  on  the  list  of  colleges 
which  owe  their  existence  to  Oberlin.  This  university 
is  one  of  those  whose  character  was  determined  by 
the  excitement  the  success  of  Oberlin  had  aroused; 
but  its  existence  was  due  to  two  ladies  from  Western 
New  York.  It  will  have  been  seen,  by  some  details 
in  the  body  of  this  work,  that  an  attempt  was  made 
to  secure  for  woman  a  share  in  the  noble  State  en- 
dowment at  ''Ann  Arbor,"  Michigan,  but  without 
success.  I  will  tell  a  part  of  the  story  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Miss  Mary  Chapin,  then  of  Milwaukee,  the 
lady  who,  with  the  assistance  of  her  sister,  carried 
the  work  out  in  Kansas. 

"Some  years  ago,''  she  says,  ''the  Legislature  of 
Michigan  decided  that  girls  might  be  admitted  a» 
pupils  to  the  State  University.  The  faculty  of  that 
institution  consulted  the  'wise  men  of  the  East'  on 
the  subject,  and  excluded  women  on  the  ground  of 
expediency.    If  it  were  necessary  to  make  it  a  mixed 


AN    APPENDIX.  415 

school,  in  order  to  admit  them,  perhaps  they  acted 
wisely.  It  is  no  more  just  and  wise  to  give  the 
charge  of  endowed  schools  for  girls  to  men,  than  it 
would  be  to  put  Harvard  and  Yale  into  the  hands 
of  women.  Girls  need  incentive  to  study,  even  more 
than  facilities  for  it.  The  fact,  that  the  real  education, 
of  the  boy  begins  where  that  of  the  woman  ends,  is 
not  so  depressing  as  the  'hard  work  and  low  wages' 
which  await  her  as  a  teacher.  In  1863,  Kansas  ac- 
cepted the  grant  of  land  from  Congress  for  the  endow- 
ment of  a  State  University.  The  citizens  of  Lawrence- 
secured  its  location  in  that  city,  by  the  gift  of  forty 
acres  for  a  site.  The  college  was  not  organized;  and 
it  seemed  the  time  and  place  to  decide  whether  women 
should  enter  endowed  schools  on  equal  terms  with 
men,  as  pupils  and  teachers.  Many  of  the  most  influ- 
ential men  of  Kansas  thought  it  both  just  and  expe- 
dient to  give  women  an  equal  share  of  the  benefits  of 
the  university,  and  voted  for  such  a  result.  To  obviate 
the  objection  which  closed  the  Michigan  University 
to  women,  a  bill  was  drawn  up,  organizing  a  double 
school;  that  for  girls  to  be  taught  by  women.  Some 
objection  was  made  to  this  unusual  provision,  and  the 
time  was  too  short  to  urge  its  necessity:  so  the  bill 
merely  reads,  that  it  may  be  taught  by  women.  The 
date  of  this  law  is  February,  1864.  A  school-building 
was  finished  last  summer  (1866),  and  the  college 
opened  in  September.  The  regents  elected  a  presi- 
dent and  three  professors  at  the  outset,  one  of  the 
latter  being  a  lady.    There  is  some  danger  that  tha- 


416  TEN  years: 

two  schools  will  become  one,  by  an  act  of  the  Legis- 
lature. If  this  occurs,  nothing  important  is  gained; 
but,  if  the  present  organization  continues,  woman  may 
here  show  what  a  true  feminine  culture  implies:  for, 
while  woman  differs  widely  from  man,  like  him  she 
needs  development  through  her  own  work  J  ^ 

I  have  altered  none  of  the  statements  in  this  ad- 
mirable letter.  It  will  be  seen  that  Miss  Chapin  went 
to  Kansas,  desiring  to  accomplish  two  things :  she  not 
only  wanted  education,  but  position  and  compensatiori, 
for  women,  from  the  State  fund.  I  want  these  also; 
but  I  only  ask  for  the  first,  for  I  am  certain  the  rest 
will  follow.  Neither  do  I  think  it  wise  to  insist  that 
women  shall  be  taught  only  by  women,  until  univer- 
sities have  done  the  necessary  work  of  preparation. 
In  all  the  colleges  mentioned  on  the  Oberlin  list, 
women  are  employed  as  teachers:  there  are  already 
a  good  number  of  professors  of  Greek  and  mathe- 
matics. Nor  is  the  welfare  of  women  alone  a  sufficient 
motive  for  me.  I  am  satisfied,  that  humanity  and 
civilization  gain,  in  the  mixed  college,  more  than  either 
sex  can  lose.  It  remains  for  me  to  give  a  few  of  the 
personal  details  which  Miss  Chapin's  modesty  has 
omitted.  When  she  first  thought  it  her  duty  to  press 
this  matter,  she  knew  that  she  must  be  in  Lawrence, 
in  order  to  do  the  ''talking"  which  must  precede  an 
act  of  legislation  in  America.  She  corresponded  with 
Governor  Robinson,  in  reference  to  a  day-school  in 
Lawrence,  and  started  with  her  sister  to  take  charge 
of  it.    On  their  way,  they  were  startled  by  the  terrible 


AN   APPENDIX.  417 

news  of  the  Kansas  raid.  They  hesitated  for  a. little; 
but,  thank  God,  in  spite  of  raids,  the  work  of  the 
world  goes  on.  Miss  Mary  went  on  herself  in  Sep- 
tember,, and,  after  a  week's  residence,  decided  to  defer 
the  opening  of  her  school.  In  December,  both  sisters 
went,  and  began  their  daily  teaching,  and  the  gentle 
agitation  which  was  to  yield  the  great  result.  They 
also  tried,  at  the  East,  to  raise  money  to  realize  at 
once,  on  a  small  scale,  their  idea)  of  a  practical  course 
of  study  for  women,  especially  of  a  scientific  school. 
'' Science,'  says  Miss  Chapin,  ''has  not  yet  been 
applied  to  the  arts  of  domestic  life.  The  ordering  of 
home,  as  a  centre  of  comfort  and  culture,  has  yet  to 
be  considered.  Architecture  has  much  to  do  with 
civilization.  The  laws  of  health  and  the  means  of 
social  progress  lie  entirely  in  woman's  province.  Hor- 
ticulture will  do  more  for  her  than  calisthenics.  She 
is  ready  to  do  useful  work,  but  has  no  means.  A 
very  wasteful  economy  denies  her  this,  to  lavish  thou- 
sands on  her  folly  and  ostentation." 

I  cannot  detail  all  the  obstacles  which  Miss  Cha- 
pin's  effort  encountered.  Mr.  Charles  Chadwick,  of 
Lawrence,  drew  up  the  bill;  General  DietzJer  and 
Governor  Robinson  pushed  it.  At  the  last  moment, 
the  original  bill  was  carried  off  in  the  pocket  of  an 
opposing  member;  but  the  wit  and  quick  memory  of 
a  woman  saved  it. 

It  has  been  mentioned,  that,  after  its  passage,  a 
lady  was  elected  professor,  with  a  salary  of  $1,600, 
and  the  same  for  her  assistant.     It  is  almost  needless 

31 


418  TEN  years: 

to  say,  this  was  Miss  Caroline  Chapin.  She  has  not 
yet  accepted  the  position.  The  two  sisters  are  at  the 
head  of  a  high  school  in  Quincy,  111.,  which  has  this 
peculiarity:  there  is  attached  to  it  a  school  in  model- 
ling, under  the  charge  of  a  professed  sculptor. 

In  the  first  part  of  this  volume,  I  have  intimated 
that  a  new  effort  has  been  made,  sustained  by  the 
pleading  of  Theodore  Tilton,  to  open  Michigan  Uni- 
versity to  female  students.  At  the  moment  when 
these  pages  go  to  press,  it  seems  uncertain  whether 
this  resolution  will  prevail  with  the  present  Legisla- 
ture, or  whether  a  motion  for  a  university  for  women, 
under  the  same  regents,  will  supersede  it.  The  Greek 
professor  has  practically  solved  the  difficulty,  by  ad- 
mitting his  own  daughter  to  his  classes,  without  ask- 
ing the  faculty.  This  example  was  set  him,  years 
ago,  by  Mr.  Magill,  in  the  Boston  Latin  School. 

As  these  pages  go  to  press,  an  anonymous  state- 
ment appears,  to  the  effect  that  there  have  passed 
examinations  for  the  University  of  Cambridge,  Eng- 
land,— Junior  boys,  1,126;  Junior  girls,  118;  Senior 
boys,  212;  Senior  girls,  84.  It  would  seem  that  the 
conditions  of  the  opening  of  this  university  are  hardly 
understood.  If  I  am  right,  these  examinations  confer 
a  certain  rank  on  the  female  scholars,  but  do  not  ad- 
mit them  afterward  to  the  university. 

SCHOOL   FOR   NURSES. 

The  most  interesting  educational  movement,  at 
this  moment,  in  that  country,  is  Miss  Nightingale's 


AN   APPENDIX.  419 

'' Training-school  for  Nurses,"  which  has  been  in  op- 
eration for  three  years  in  Liverpool.  It  was  founded, 
after  a  correspondence  with  her,  in  strict  conformity 
to  her  counsel.  As  a  training-school,  it  may  be  said 
to  be  self-supporting;  but  it  is  also  a  beneficent  insti- 
tution, and,  in  that  regard,  is  sustained  by  donations. 
A  most  admirable  system  of  district  nursing  is  pro- 
vided, under  its  auspices,  for  the  whole  city  of  Liver- 
pool, all  of  whose  suffering  sick  become,  in  this  way, 
the  recipients  of  intelligent  care,  and  of  valuable  in- 
struction in  cooking  and  all  sanitary  matters.  It  is 
too  tempting  an  experiment  to  dwell  upon,  unless  we 
could  follow  it  into  its  details.  Its  report  occupies  a 
hundred  and  one  pages. 

It  seems  worth  while  to  look  into  this  report,  and 
examine  in  detail  its  method  of  dealing  with  sickness 
among  the  poor.  When  Miss  Nightingale  drew  espe- 
cial attention  to  the  want  of  such  schools  in  England 
in  1861,  some  ladies  and  gentlemen  in  Liverpool  came 
together,  and  entered  into  correspondence  with  her. 
Out  of  that  correspondence  grew  the  Liverpool  school. 
The  Liverpool  Infirmary,  the  most  considerable  hospi- 
tal in  that  city,  entered  into  the  plan,  and  offered  its 
wards  for  the  instruction  of  the  nurses.  The  society 
proposed  to  itself  three  objects: — 

1.  To  provide  thoroughly  trained  nurses  for  hos- 
pitals. 

2.  To  provide  district  or  missionary  nurses  for  the 
poor. 

3.  To  provide  trained  nurses  for  private  families. 


420  TEN  years: 

Nowhere  are  hospital  and  private  nurses  so  badly 
trained  as  in  England;  and  Miss  Nightingale  well 
says  that  half  the  symptoms  which  are  considered 
symptoms  of  disease  are,  in  reality,  indications  of  a 
want  of  air,  light,  warmth,  quiet,  of  cleanliness,  which 
properly  instructed  nurses  would  know  how  to  supply. 
A  want  of  punctuality  in  administering  food,  and  of 
watchful  care  in  detecting  its  effects  upon  the  patient, 
create  other  classes  of  symptoms.  The  beer-drinking 
habits  of  the  people  lead  to  much  intoxication;  and 
we  ourselves  have  seen  ladies  of  quality  lying  on  a 
sick-bed,  where  they  suffered  for  the  attention  which 
a  thoroughly  stupefied  nurse  was  incapable  of  giving. 
No  amount  of  wealth,  as  Miss  Nightingale  testifies, 
can  secure  such  nurses  as  wealthy  patients  often  need, 
and  for  which  a  thorough  hospital-training  is  required. 
The  society  strengthens  her  appeal  by  extracts  from 
Dr.  Howson's  paper,  read  at  the  meeting  of  the  Social 
Science  Association  in  1858. 

The  Liverpool  school  has  erected  a  building,  to 
carry  out  its  purpose,  eighty-five  feet  by  forty.  It 
has  three  stories,  each  of  them  eleven  feet  high;  and, 
by  a  single  glance  at  the  plans  which  accompany  the 
pamphlet,  one  sees  that  the  arrangements  for  bathing 
and  ventilation  are  what  those  of  our  new  city  hospi- 
tal ought  to  be.  One  lady  superintendent,  with  three 
servants,  has  charge  of  this  building.  It  has  thirty- 
one  nurses  under  training.  By  the  wages  which  they 
earn  in  the  second  and  third  years,  the  expenses  of 
this  Home  are  nearly  paid,  leaving  a  margin  of  about 


AN    APPENDIX.  421 

three  hundred  pounds  to  be  supplied  by  donations.  It 
is  expected  to  be  a  self-supporting  institution,  except  so 
far  as  it  becomes  a  benevolent  charity,  by  supplying  to 
the  poor,  food  and  nursing.  When  the  institution  was 
ready  to  begin  its  work,  the  lady  superintendent  hav- 
ing been  some  months  in  training  at  St.  John's  College 
and  the  London  Hospital,  where  the  nurses  educated  by 
the  Nightingale  Fund  are  to  be  found,  took  possession 
of  her  building.  Her  head-nurses  had  been  thoroughly 
educated.  Pupils  then  offered:  they  were  engaged  for 
three  years,  the  first  year  to  be  strictly  probationary. 
Each  head-nurse  was  to  take  charge  of  an  entire  ward 
of  the  hospital,  to  be  responsible  for  the  medicines 
and  stimulants,  always  assisted  by  one  pupil.  Each 
pupil  went  first  for  two  months  to  a  surgical  ward; 
then  for  two  to  the  medical;  then  four  at  the  surgical, 
and  four  again  at  the  medical, — one  course  helping 
the  other,  and  both  filling  the  entire  year  under  a 
thoroughly  trained  head.  For  the  next  two  years,  the 
pupil  is  employed  without  such  superintendence  wher- 
ever need  is ;  and,  for  each  of  the  three  years,  receives, 
in  addition  to  board  and  lodgings,  seventy  dollars. 
At  the  Home  there  is  a  good  library,  and  evening 
classes  are  held  for  the  disengaged  pupils.  A  su- 
perannuation fund  has  been  started,  to  encourage 
respectable  women  to  enter  the  Home.  At  the  end 
of  the  third  year,  the  Home  has  twenty-eight  pupils 
under  training,  fourteen  hospital  nurses,  fourteen  dis- 
trict or  gratuitous  nurses,  and  ten  employed  in  private 
families. 


422  TEN  years: 

This  gives  an  idea  of  the  training  process;  but  our 
chief  interest  lies  in  the  district  nursing.  As  soon  as 
the  Home  had  nurses  it  felt  willing  to  trust,  one  of 
the  experiments  recommended  by  Miss  Nightingale 
was  tried.  The  wife  of  a  Scripture-reader  undertook 
to  prepare  sago,  necessaries,  &c.;  the  clergyman  of 
the  parish  furnished  a  list  of  patients,  and  a  central 
lodging,  for  the  nurse.  The  Home  sent  her  out,  sup- 
plied with  cushions,  blankets,  and  bed-rests.  She 
went  into  the  families,  showed  them  what  to  do,  and 
helped  with  her  own  hands.  At  the  end  of  the  first 
week,  she  came  back,  crying  and  begging  to  be  re- 
lieved; she  thought  she  never  could  bear  the  sight  of 
the  misery  she  encountered.  But,  in  a  short  time,  she 
was  so  strengthened  by  seeing  the  results  of  her  labor, 
that  she  positively  refused  to  take  employment  among 
the  rich.  It  is  easy  to  see  what  great  advantages  wait 
on  this  form  of  charity.  As  instruction  is  precisely 
what  she  comes  to  give,  the  poor  cannot  resent  this 
from  the  nurse;  she  fears  no  imposition,  for  she  is  in 
the  house  at  all  hours  of  the  day  and  night;  her  little 
gifts  do  not  wound,  but  cheer  like  neighborly  kind- 
nesses. It  is  Miss  Nightingale's  idea,  that  such  nursing 
is  a  far  greater  good  than  the  establishment  of  hospi- 
tals. In  six  months,  this  nurse  found  two  cases  where 
the  prolonged  sickness  of  the  wife  had  made  drunk- 
ards of  two  otherwise  steady  husbands,  and  brought 
their  families  to  the  brink  of  ruin.  The  wives  were 
cured,  the  husbands  reformed,  the  families  saved.  A 
leaf  from  her  report  of  cases  will  show  what  she  did: 


AN    APPENDIX.  423 

1.  Asthma  and  bed-sores. — Lying  on  a  floor;  so  thin,  had  to 
lift  her  on  a  sheet.  Dirt,  bad  air:  two  children.  Husband  said  he 
"was  forsaken  by  God  and  man."  Our  nurse  goes  in,  washes, 
her,  changes  linen;  lends  bedstead  and  bedding,  and  air-cushions; 
cleans  and  whitewashes.  The  woman  now  sits  up,  and  the  man 
is  again  hopeful. 

2.  Internal  cancer. — Nurse  attended  to  the  surgical  operation, 
and  administration  of  subsequent  remedies.  The  woman  is  now 
at  work. 

3.  Paralysis. — Nurse  attended;  gave  instruction  and  food. 
Recovery  complete. 

4.  A  girl — as  the  doctor  said — in  a  consumption.  Hospital 
refused  her  as  incurable.  Beef-tea,  wine,  sago,  and  cod-hver  oil 
supplied;  and,  in  one  month,  she  could  walk  to  the  nurse's  lodg- 
ing. 

Out  of  all  this  success,  the  perfect  plan  developed. 
It  had  been  provecj,  that  the  poor  were  willing  to  be 
taught  how  to. nurse,  and  to  keep  their  houses  clean; 
that  intense  distress  might  be  mitigated,  and  coming 
poverty  arrested.  It  was  also  proved,  that  the  nurse 
so  employed  could  notify  the  health  commissioners  of 
incipient  epidemics,  and  obtain  for  ignorant  tenants, 
in  return,  necessary  whitewashing,  drainage,  &c. 

The  city  of  Liverpool  was  now  divided  into  eighteen 
districts,  each  of  which,  for  practical  convenience,  was 
made  to  correspond  to  two  church  cures.  The  Home 
undertook  to  furnish  a  nurse  to  each  district,  provided 
it  would  elect  for  itself  a  lady  superintendent,  and 
raise  a  subscription  for  food,  medicines,  and  necessa- 
ries. As  soon  as  the  superintendent  is  found,  meet- 
ings are  held  to  interest  the  district;  each  district 


424  TEN  years: 

having  an  average  population  of  twenty-four  thou- 
sand and  over.  A  central  lodging  is  then  to  be 
supplied  for  the  nurse,  and  the  district  must  furnish, 
for  loan  and  use,  the  folio vving  articles: — 

One  iron  bedstead,  six  pairs  of  sheets,  six  blankets,  cushions, 
bed-gowns,  shirts,  flannels,  wine,  meat,  sago,  bread,  coals,  arrow- 
root, preserves,  and  vinegar. 

If  any  thing  excites  one's  envy  in  the  current  ex- 
penses, it  is  the  amount  of  coals  required.  To  think 
of  warming  forty  people  for  one  year  for  twenty-six 
pounds! 

The  superintendent  is  supplied  with  a  map  of  the 
district,  forms  of  recommendation,  rules  for  patients 
and  nurses,  and  slates  and  pencils  to  be  hung  at  the 
head-board,  to  receive  the  directions  of  the  doctor,  and 
the  inquiries  of  the  nurse.  In  seven  of  the  districts, 
the  lady  superintendents  furnish  the  supplies  at  their 
own  cost!  How  gladly  ought  any  wealthy  woman  to 
avail  herself  of  so  sure  a  method !  A  strong  woman  is 
hired  for  scrubbing;  and  very  often  the  first  thing  a 
nurse  does  is  to  demand  whitewashing  and  repairs  of 
the  Board  of  Health.  In  each  district,  a  person  is 
provided  to  cook  the  necessary  food;  the  nurse  giving 
notice,  through  the  superintendent,  of  her  wants.  The 
nurse  herself  confers  with  the  doctors,  waits  on  the 
surgeons,  changes  and  cleanses  the  patient,  and  ad- 
ministers poultices,  blisters,  leeches,  enemas,  and  the 
like.  One  Liverpool  lady  defrays  the  whole  cost  of 
washing  the  loaned  linen  for  the  eighteen  districts! 
A  registry  of  it  is  kept  by  the  nurse. 


AN   APPENDIX.  425 

We  need  not  be  surprised  to  find  that  this  admira- 
ble plan  has  such  marked  success,  that  all  the  Liver- 
pool charities  are  eager  to  play  into  its  hands.  Each 
district  superintendent  is  appointed  locally;  but  the 
Home  has  an  out-door  inspector,  who  looks  after  the 
district  nurses.  The  superintendents  make  quarterly 
reports  to  the  Home,  and  hold  meetings  of  conference- 
by  themselves. 

There  is,  at  the  seaside  town  of  Southport,  a  hospi- 
tal, which  furnishes  sea-bathing  to  invalids. 

The  Committee  of  Central  Relief  for  the  city  of 
Liverpool  are  so  delighted  with  this  nursing  charity, 
that  they  have  already  offered  butcher's  meat,  three 
weeks  of  seaside  bathing  at  Southport,  and  coals  and 
money  to  any  convalescing  patient  when  deemed 
needful.  The  workingmen's  dining-rooms  offer,  oil 
proper  application,  warm  dinners  to  convalescents; 
and  the  Home,  through  its  inspector,  superintendents,, 
and  nurses,  make  sure  there  is  no  waste  nor  misuse. 

The  statistics  for  1864  were  as  follow?: — 

Apparently  cured 936 

Partially  restored 456 

Relieved  before  death 488 

Still  hopeful 180' 

Hopeless 9 

Dismissed .  289 

Total 2,358 

Such  a  record  as  this  makes  one  wish  to  emigrate- 
to  the  land  where  such  things  are  done.    The  rapid. 


426  TEN  years: 

increase  of  the  charity  may  be  judged  from  the  fact, 
that,  in  the  previous  year,  only  one  thousand  seven 
hundred  and  seventy-six  patients  were  treated,  and  only 
six  hundred  and  seventy-two  were  cured.  This  report 
comes  to  us  with  a  letter  and  notes  from  Miss  Night- 
ingale. It  is  prepared  with  the  most  beautiful  mod- 
esty. The  names  of  the  paid  officers  are  given;  but 
we  cannot  tell  from  its  pages  whose  were  the  kind 
hearts  and  clear  heads  which  first  responded  to  Miss 
Nightingale's  call.  Nowhere  has  benevolent  action 
accomplished  so  much  as  in  Great  Britain.  Such  a 
work  as  this  may  well  challenge  the  gratitude  and 
admiration  of  the  world. 

The  ^'Arnott  Scholarship''  of  Queen's  College, 
London, — founded  by  Mrs.  Arnott  in  1865,  for  the 
promotion  of  the  study  of  natural  philosophy,  and 
the  highest  scholarship  open  to  women  in  England 
— has  just  been  gained  by  Miss  Matilda  Ballard,  a 
young  lady  of  seventeen,  daughter  of  Dr.  W.  R.  Bal- 
lard, a  native  of  New  York,  and,  for  some  years,  the 
leading  American  dentist  in  London.  The  prize, 
the  money  value  of  which  is  not  far  from  two  hun- 
dred dollars,  consists  of  one  year's  free  instruction  and 
perpetual  free  admission  to  certain  lectures,  always 
interesting  and  instructive. 

The  ladies'  classes  at  Oxford  have  proved  a  great 
success,  and  the  committee  have  just  issued  a  pro- 
gramme for  the  present  term.  The  course  of  instruc- 
tion includes  Latin,  French,  Arithmetic,  Euclid, 
German,    &c.    The    Rev.   W.    C.    Sedgwick,    M.A., 


AN    APPENDIX.  427 

Fellow  and  Tutor  of  Merton  College,  has  undertaken 
to  deliver  a  course  of  lectures  on  the  Italian  Repub- 
lics of  the  Middle  Ages. 

On  the  26th  of  October,  1864,  a  Working-women's 
College  was  opened  in  London,  with  an  address  from 
Miss  F.  R.  Malleson.  It  is  governed  by  a  council  of 
teachers.  In  addition  to  the  ordinary  branches,  it 
offers  instruction  in  botany,  physiology,  and  draw- 
ing. Its  fee  is  four  shillings  a  year;  and  the  Coffee 
and  Reading  Room,  about  which  its  social  life  cen- 
tres, is  open  every  evening  from  seven  to  eleven. 

In  France,  the  Imperial  Geographical  Society, 
which  is,  in  a  certain  sense,  a  college,  has  lately  ad- 
mitted to  membership  Madame  Dora  d'Istria  (Prin- 
cess Koltzoff-Massalsky)  as  the  successor  to  Madame 
Pfeiffer.  The  Princess  had  distinguished  herself  by 
researches  in  the  Morea. 

In  Calcutta,  Miss  Mary  Carpenter  has  been  start- 
ing schools  for  Hindoo  women,  free  from  all  religious 
character  or  sectarian  denomination. 


This  seems  the  proper  place  also  to  insert  some 
details  about  schools  like  those  at  Kaiserswerth,  which 
I  could  not  procure  in  an  authentic  form  in  1858. 
The  Kaiserswerth  school  opened  under  Dr.  Fliedner, 
in  1822,  with  ''one  table,  two  beds,  a  chair,  and  one 
discharged  prisoner"!  In  1852,  the  King  of  Prussia 
laid  the  foundation  of  a  home  for  the  aged  deaconesses 
who  have  served  as  teachers  and  nurses. 

The  school   at  Strassburg,   under   Pastor  Harber, 


428  TEN  years: 

began,  in  1842,  with  one  sister  from  a  higher  rank 
of  life.  It  undertakes  to  train  servants,  and  is  chiefly 
under  women's  control.  Assistance  is  also  given  to 
clergymen  in  seeking  out  cases  of  temporal  and  spirit- 
ual distress,  in  detecting  imposture,  in  attending  the 
sick  in  their  own  houses,  in  teaching  the  poor  how  to 
nurse  and  how  to  cook,  in  promoting  the  attendance 
of  children  at  school,  in  co-operating  with  charitable  in- 
stitutions to  superintend  sewing  and  mending  schools, 
in  influencing,  for  good,  factory  girls  and  servants; 
and,  in  the  hospital  at  Miihlhausen,  the  women  taught 
here  make  up  bandages  and  prescriptions,  cook  for  the 
poor  and  sick,  receive  the  patients,  and  do  out-door 
visiting.  At  Basle,  there  is  a  Deaconess  House,  under 
the  charge  of  a  daughter  of  a  Basle  manufacturer.  It 
looks  after  the  laboring  classes,  and  provides  for  the 
sick. 

The  house  opened  at  St.  Loup,  under  Pastor  Ger- 
mond,  in  1842,  takes  charge  of  sick  children.  At 
Geneva,  a  deaconess  has  had  charge  for  six  years; 
through  whom  five  hundred  servants  get  their  places, 
and  with  whom  they  find  homes  when  out  of  health 
or  work.  In  1859,  twenty -one  were  nursed  in  the 
institution. 

A  house  in  the  Faubourg  St.  Antoine,  Paris,  was 
proposed  by  M.  Vermeil,  in  1830.  In  1840,  Made- 
moiselle Malvesin  offered  to  conduct  it;  her  letter  to 
Vermeil,  and  his  to  her,  crossing  each  other.  Holland 
and  Sweden  have  opened  several  of  these  schools.  In 
our  own  country,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Passevant,  a  Lutheran 


AN   APPENDIX.  429 

minister  of  Pittsburg,  Pa.,  is  establishing  hospitals  in 
every  State,  under  the  care  of  women.  They  are 
supported  by  contributions  in  all  the  city  churches, 
except  the  Catholic.  These  hospitals  are  under  the 
care  of  a  sisterhood,  who  cannot,  as  yet,  compete 
with  the  Sisters  of  Charity.  It  seems  to  me,  that 
Mr.  Passevant  has  erred  in  a  most  noble  work,  by 
drawing  his  sisters  from  the  uncultivated  classes. 
Such  a  work  should  bear  the  right  stamp  in  the 
beginning.  In  Western  Pennsylvania,  a^so,  Bishop 
Kerfoot  has  begun  the  noble  work  of  endowing  his 
whole  diocese  with  suitable  high  schools  for  girls, 
where  they  may  obtain  at  home,  for  one  hundred  dol- 
lars annually,  what  it  would  cost  five  times  as  much 
to  procure  at  a  distance. 

MEDICAL  EDUCATION. 

As  regards  medical  education,  we  know  of  two 
colleges,  or,  rather,  of  one  college  and  one  hospital, 
in  Boston,  where  education  is  given.  There  is  one  in 
Springfield,  and  one  in  Philadelphia.  We  should  be 
glad  to  get  more ■  statistics  of  this  kind;  for  Cleve- 
land, where  Dr.  Zakrzewska  took  her  degree,  is  no 
longer  open  to  female  students,  and  Geneva  is  con- 
tenting herself  with  the  honor  of  having  graduated 
Dr.  Blackwell.  Nine  women  were  graduated  at  the 
New  York  Medical  School  for  Women,  in  February  of 
this  year.  Professor  Willis  then  stated  that  there  are 
three  hundred  female  physicians  in  the  country,  earn- 
ing incomes  of  from  ten  to  twenty  thousand  dollars. 


430  TEN  years: 

There  is  a  female  medical  society  in  London.  This 
society  wishes  to  open  the  way  for  thorough  medical 
instruction,  which  will  entitle  its  graduates  to  a  degree 
from  Apothecaries'  Hall;  and  it  offered  lectures  from 
competent  persons,  in  1864,  upon  obstetrics  and  gene- 
ral medical  science.  Madame  Aillot's  Hospital  of  the 
Maternity,  in  Paris,  still  offers  its  great  advantages  to 
women;  of  which  two  of  our  countrywomen,  Miss 
Helen  Morton  and  Miss  Lucy  E.  Sewall,  have  taken 
creditable  advantage.  They  are  both  of  them  Mas- 
sachusetts girls.  Miss  Morton  is  retained  in  Paris, 
and  Miss  Sewall  is  the  resident  physician  of  the  Hos- 
pital for  Women  and  Children,  in  Boston. 

At  present,  to  obtain  thorough  instruction  in  any 
branch,  women  are  obliged  to  pay  exorbitant  prices, 
and  receive,  as  the  results  of  their  training,  but  half- 
wages.  In  Boston,  Dr.  Zakrzewska  has  again  unsuc- 
cessfully asked  permission  to  become  a  member  of  the 
Massachusetts  Medical  Society.  Many  physicians, 
however,  extend  the  fellowship  which  the  institution 
denies,  and  the  "Medical  Journal"  expresses  itself 
courteously  on  this  point.  Efforts^  sustained  by  the 
influential  name  of  the  Hon.  Charles  G.  Loring,  are 
at  this  moment  making  to  secure  the  advantages  of 
the  Harvard  College  lectures  to  women  intending  to 
become  physicians.* 

In  1863,  there  existed  in  St.  Petersburg  a  stringent 
regulation,  which  prohibited  women  from  following 

*  The  application  is  declined,  as  we  go  to  press,  on  the  ground  that  no  pro- 
vision has  been  made  at  Cambridge  for  women. 


AN    APPENDIX.  431 

the  university  courses.  A  Miss  K.,  who  had  a  decided 
taste  for  medicine,  without  the  means  to  pay  for  in- 
struction, applied  for  such  instruction  to  the  authori- 
ties of  Orenburg.  Orenburg  is  partly  in  Europe  and 
partly  in  Asia,  and  its  territory  includes  the  Cossack 
races  of  the  Ural.  These  people  have  a  superstitious 
prejudice  against  male  physicians,  and  are  chiefly 
attended  in  illness  by  sorceresses.  Miss  K.  offered 
to  put  her  medical  knowledge  at  the  service  of  the 
Cossacks,  and  received  permission  to  attend  the  Acad- 
emy of  Medicine.  The  Cossacks  promised  her  an 
annual  stipend  of  twenty-eight  roubles;  but,  when  she 
passed  the  half-yearly  examination  as  well  as  the  male 
students,  they  sent  her  three  hundred  roubles  as  a 
token  of  good- will ! 

In  France,  a  Mademoiselle  Reugger,  from  Algeria, 
lately  passed  a  brilliant  examination,  and  received  the 
degree  of  Bachelor  of  Letters.  She  appealed  to  the 
Dean  of  the  Faculty  at  Montpellier  for  permission  to 
follow  the  regulai  course,  and  was  refused  on  account 
of  her  sex.  She  then  turned  to  the  Minister  of  Public 
Instruction,  who  granted  it,  on  condition  that  she 
should  pledge  herself  to  practise  only  in  Algeria, 
where  the  Arabs,  like  the  Cossacks,  refuse  the  attend- 
ance of  male  physicians.  Unlike  our  Russian  friend, 
she  refused  to  give  the  pledge.  She  threw  herself 
upon  her  rights,  and  appealed  in  person  to  the  em- 
peror. This  was  in  December  last,  and  I  have  not 
been  able  to  find  his  decision.  It  was  doubtless  given 
in  her  behalf;  for  Louis  Napoleon  will  always  yield, 


432  TEN  years: 

as  a  favor,  what  he  would  stubbornly  refuse  as  a 
right. 

A  female  medical  mission  is  to  be  despatched  to 
Delhi,  for  the  same  reason.  The  physicians  pent  out 
are, — 

1.  To  attend  native  ladies  in  the  Zenanas. 

2.  To  set  on  foot  a  dispensary  for  women  only. 

3.  To  train  native  women  as  nurses. 

Of  the  medical  profession,  it  should  be  stated,  for 
the  encouragement  of  women,  that  there  are  over 
three  hundred  graduates  from  the  several  medical  col- 
leges for  women;  and  that  there  is  scarcely  a  village 
throughout  the  country  but  has  its  woman  physician, 
of  greater  or  less  skill.  In  New  York  City,  there  are 
many  successful  physicians  beside  the  Drs.  Blackwell. 
Dr.  Lozier  has  a  practice  of  $15,000,  and  owns  two 
fine  houses,  earned  by  her  own  perseverance.  In 
Orange,  N.  J.,  Dr.  Fowler  is  very  popular,  and  has  a 
paying  practice  of  $5,000  a  year.  In  Philadelphia  is 
Dr.  Hannah  Longshore,  with  a  practice  worth  $10,000 
per  annum;  then  there  are  Drs.  Preston,  Tressel,  Sar- 
tain,  Cleveland,  and  Myres,  with  incomes  ranging 
from  $5,000  to  $2,000.  In  Utica,  N.  Y.,  Dr.  Pamela 
Bronson  is  a  successful  physician.  In  Albion  is  Dr. 
Vail;  in  Weedsport,  Dr.  Harriet  E.  Seeley.  In 
Rochester,  Dr.  Sarah  DoUey  numbers  among  her 
patrons  many  persons  of  wealth  and  fashion,  who, 
but  a  few  years  ago,  ridiculed  the  idea  of  a  ''female 
physician."  Mrs.  Dolley's  practice  brings  her  fully 
$3,000  a  year. 


AN   APPENDIX.  433 

Dr.  Gleason  of  Elmira,  Dr.  Ivison  of  Ithaca,  and 
Dr.  Green,  late  of  Clifton  Springs,  who  has  opened  a 
water-cure  somewhere  in  Western  New  York,  all  have 
a  large  amount  of  practice,  and  prescribe  with  the 
greatest  acceptance  for  those  who  favor  hydropathic 
treatment. 

At  Milwaukee,  in  the  autumn  of  1866,  I  found  Dr.. 
Ross.  She  is  one  of  the  consulting  physicians  of  the 
Passe vant  Hospital  and  of  the  Orphans'  Home.  She 
has  practised  with  steadily  increasing  reputation  for 
ten  years.  She  understands  what  is  due  to  her  posi- 
tion, and  has  had  a  hard  struggle  with  the  empirical 
women  of  the  medical  profession  that  crowd  the  great 
thoroughfares  of  the  West.  But  she  would  neither 
lower  her  fees  nor  abate  her  requirements  to  compete 
with  this  class.  She  came  of  the  best  surgical  blood. 
Her  grandmother  was  Mercy  Warren,  married  to 
Darling  Huntress,  of  Newbury,  and  first  cousin  to 
General  Warren,  of  Bunker's  Hill.  Our  famous  Bos- 
ton surgeons  of  the  same  family  might  be  proud  of 
her  reputation.  She  has  established  her  practice  and 
her  character,  and  would  agree  with  all  that  I  have 
stated  in  the  body  of  this  book  in  regard  to  the  great 
need  of  medical  societies  to  guard  the  position  of 
well-educated  physicians,  which  is  now  at  the  mercy 
of  a  worthless  college  diploma.  Dr.  Ross  goes  to  the 
Paris  Exposition  of  this  year  (1867),  as  an  agent  for 
the  State  of  Wisconsin.  She  deserves  the  honor; 
and  the  State  has  done  itself  credit  by  the  choice. 
The  professional  position  of  the  physicians  at  the 


434  TEN  years: 

New  England  Hospital  for  Women  and  Children  in 
Boston,  is  also  a  matter  for  general  congratulation. 

The  English  Female  Medical  Society  reports  (June, 
1866)  twenty  students  and  good  results. 

The  physicians  of  this  country  have  been  occupied 
this  winter  in  discussing  the  discovery,  by  one  of  their 
number,  of  the  active  infectant  in  fever  and  ague.  It 
has  been  found  in  the  dust-like  spores  of  a  marsh 
plant,  the  Pamella.  In  Paris,  at  the  same  time,  a 
woman  of  rank  claims  to  have  discovered  the  cause 
of  cholera,  in  a  microscopic  insect,  developed  in  low 
and  filthy  localities.  Her  details  were  so  mmute, 
that  the  Academy  of  Science,  which  began  by  laugh- 
ing at  the  introduction  of  the  matter,  has  been 
compelled  to  listen;  and  the  subject  is  now  under 
investigation. 

THE  PULPIT. 

A  very  interesting  account  has  lately  been  pub- 
lished of  Amelie  von  Braum,  an  educated  Swedish 
lady,  the  daughter  of  an  army  officer.  She  began  to 
preach  in  1843,  at  Carlshamm,  where  she  lived,  iti  the 
lowest  dens  of  vice  and  misery.  She  carried  with 
her  a  clean  cloth  and  lighted  candles,  which  give 
a  festive  impulse  to  the  Swedish  mind;  and  her 
serious  words  produced  an  extraordinary  effect.  In 
1856  she  removed  to  Stockholm,  and  was  earnestly 
entreated  to  go  to  Dalecadin,  and  instruct  the  people. 
From  that  time,  she  has  acted  as  an  itinerant  evan- 


AN   APPENDIX.  435 

gelist,  preaching  in  summer  in  the  open  air.  People 
listen  to  her  for  hours  in  rapt  attention. 

In  Sweden,  there  is  also  Mamsell  Berg,*  a  brave 
young  woman,  who  thought  herself  moved  by  the 
Holy  Spirit  to  teach  the  young  Laps.  She  could  not 
get  away  from  the  thought  that  she  ought  to  do  it. 
A  clergyman,  to  whom  she  spoke  upon  the  matter, 
counselled  her  wisely:  ''Endeavor  to  shake  off  the 
feeling;  if  you  cannot,  then  accept  it  as  a  vocation 
from  God,  and  try  it  for  six  months."  She  said,  ''If 
I  go,  it  shall  not  be  for  six  months,  but  for  three 
years."  She  went;  and  the  three  years  became  seven. 
She  seems  also  to  have  been  a  noble  and  beautiful 
creature.  She  gathered  the  children  around  her,  un- 
der the  most  difficult  circumstances,  expending  her 
little  property  in  putting  up  a  schoolhouse  for  them, 
and  laying  in  sacks  of  potatoes,  that  she  might  feed 
the  half-famishing;  learning  herself  the  Laplandish 
language,  teaching  them  the  Swedish,  and  discours- 
ing to  them  about  the  love  of  God. 

In  spite  of  the  bitter  words  of  warning  which  John 
Ruskin  has  thought  it  his  duty  to  speak  to  such 
women  as  enter  upon  theological  studies,  a  good 
many  women  in  Great  Britain  and  this  country  have 
engaged  in  what  is  properly  the  work  of  the  Chris- 
tian ministry.  The  only  ordained  minister  whose 
work  has  come  under  our  notice  since  the  marriage 
of  Antoinette  Blackwell  is  the  Rev..  Olympia  Brown, 

*  I  believe  I  am  indebted  for  some  of  these  items  to  Miss  Hewitt's  book, 
but  I  have  not  yet  seen  it. 


436  TEN  years: 

settled  over  the  Universalist  Society  at  Weymouth 
Landing,  Mass.,  and  lately  called  to  Newburgh  in 
New  York.  Her  ministry  has  been  highly  successful, 
and  is  to  be  mentioned  here  chiefly  on  account  of  a 
legal  decision  to  which  it  has  given  rise.  The  church 
at  Weymouth  Landing  made  an  appeal  to  the  Legis- 
lature, last  winter,  as  to  the  legality  of  marriages 
solemnized  by  her.  The  Legislature  gave  the  same 
general  construction  to  the  masculine  relatives  in  the 
enactment  which  the  English  law  gave  to  the  old 
Latin  word  in  the  charter  of  Apothecaries'  Hall;  de- 
ciding that  marriages  so  solemnized  are  legal,  and  no 
further  legislation  necessary. 

Mention,  too,  should  be  made  of  Rev.  Lydia  A. 
Jenkins,  who  has  been  a  successful  preacher  among 
the  Universalists  for  the  last  eight  or  ten  years,  and  is 
now  settled  at  Binghamton,  N.  Y. 

Very  recently,  during  the  illness  of  her  husband, 
the  minister  at  Bethesda  Chapel,  Newcastle,  England, 
a  Mrs.  Booth  occupied  the  pulpit,  to  the  great  interest 
and  profit  of  the  congregation.  Among  the  Methodists 
and  "Christians,"*  as  well  as  among  the  Quakers, 
women  have  always  been  received  as  preachers.  In 
October,  1866,  I  found  a  Mrs.  Timmins  settled  as  the 
pastor  of  Ebenezer  Church,  three  miles  from  Yellow 
Springs,  Ohio,  where  she  had  been  for  three  years. 
Ann  Rexford  is  mentioned  as  an  effective  preacher 
among  the  Christians.    Her  preaching  attracted  large 


♦Thia  word  distinguishes  a  peculiar  Unitarian  Church,  something  like  the 
Methodist. 


AN   APPENDIX.  437 

crowds  in  the  State  of  New  Jersey,  some  thirty  years 
ago. 

But  the  most  remarkable  record,  if  we  except  those 
to  be  found  among  the  Quakers,  of  any  single 
woman's  work  in  the  ministry,  is  that  of  Abigail  Hoag 
Roberts,  who  was  the  settled  minister  of  a  church 
built  for  her  at  Milford,  N.  J.,  and  who  died  in  1841, 
at  the  age  of  forty-nine. 

With  her  ministry  is  interlinked  that  of  two  other 
women, — that  of  Nancy  Gore  Cram,  of  Weare, 
N.  H.,  and  a  Mrs.  Hedges.  Mrs.  Cram  began  life  as 
a  Free-will  Baptist,  and  undertook  a  mission  to  the 
Oneida  Indians.  The  spiritual  destitution  of  Cen- 
tral New  York  in  the  year  1812  affected  her  pro- 
foundly. Not  a  preacher  of  her  own  denomination 
in  New  Hampshire  could  be  induced  to  go  there. 
Disappointed  in  them,  she  hurried  to  Woodstock,  Vt., 
and  laid  the  case  before  a  conference  of ''Christian'* 
elders  and  ministers,  then  in  session.  They  under- 
stood her  better.  She  hurried  back  to  the  field  she 
had  left;  and,  when  the  ministers  followed  her,  they 
were  astonished  at  her  work.  A  church  was  buiH  for 
her  at  Ballston  Spa.  She  is  described  as  a  delicate, 
blue-eyed  woman,  with  dark  hair,  dressing  plainly  in 
black  silk,  with  her  hair  in  a  silk  net;  her  whole 
appearance  and  manner  befitting  her  work.  She  died 
in  1816,  suddenly,  in  the  fortieth  year  of  her  age. 
Mrs.  Roberts  was  one  of  her  converts, — a  woman 
who  was  a  constant  preacher,  from  June,  1814,  to 
the  June  of  1841,  in  which  she  died,  and,  for  many 


438  TEN  years: 

years,  a  settled  pastor  over  the  church  at  Milford, 
where  a  monument  has  been  erected  to  her.  More 
than  once  she  defended  the  unity  of  God  in  public 
discussion  with  the  clergy,  whom  she  brought  to 
ignominious  defeat.  She  travelled  through  the  three 
States  of  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania, 
where  her  name  is  still  a  household  word.  More  than 
once,  she  was  threatened  by  her  own  sex  with  ''tar 
and  feathers."  She  seems  to  have  been,  like  Ann 
Hutchinson,  a  witty  woman.  ''If  you  feel  called  to 
preach,"  said  one  minister  to  her,  "why  do  you  not 
go  to  the  heathen?" — "So  far  as  I  can  judge,"  she 
answered,  "I  am  in  the  midst  of  them."  She  had  a 
large  family  of  children,  and  was  distinguished  for 
her  household  skill.  She  was  quite  famed  for  delicate 
clear-starching,  and,  on  one  occasion,  wove  with  a 
hand-shuttle  twenty-four  yards  of  woollen  cloth  be- 
tween early  morning  and  nine  o'clock  "at  night. 
Many  people  sought  her  for  information.  Disliking 
one  woman's  vulgarity,  she  said  to  her,  "If  you  be- 
lieve in  the  Holy  Ghost,  why  not  use  the  language 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  uses?"  She  was  a  great  suf- 
ferer in  her  latter  years,  but  continued  to  preach  at  the 
Milford  churdh,  where  she  had  four  hundred  commu- 
nicants, and  a  congregation,  at  times,  of  twelve  hun- 
dred persons,  even  after  she  was  compelled  to  lean 
upon  a  staff.  The  Rev.  Eli  Fay  preached  her  funeral 
sermon,  and  bore  testimony  to  her  great  ability.  The 
life  from  which  I  have  drawn  these  particulars  was 
written  by  her  son,  and  printed  at  Irvington,  N.  J. 


AN    APPENDIX.  439 

Her  colleague,  Mrs.  Hedges,  died  before  her; — a 
singular  anecdote  is  related  of  her.  She  was  exer- 
cised with  some  doubts  as  to  the  separate  existence 
of  the  soul,  and  besought  God  in  prayer  to  satisfy  her 
mind.  It  seemed  to  her,  after  retiring  to  rest,  that 
her  soul  left  her  body,  passed  through  locked  doors, 
and  found  several  unusual  adjustments  of  furniture  in 
the  house,  and  at  last  returned  to  the  pale  form  upon 
the  bed.  She  rose  happy,  but,  on  trying  to  prove  her 
vision,  found  every  thing  in  its  usual  place.  A  thor- 
ough inquiry  in  the  household,  however,  showed  that 
the  changes  she  had  observed  had  actually  occurred 
in  the  night,  and  continued  for  some  time.  Her  expe- 
rience was  the  not  uncommon  one  of  the  Seeress  of 
Prevorst. 

It  will  be  remembered,  that,  in  the  first  edition  of 
''Woman's  Right  to  Labor,"  I  proposed  a  deaconess 
in  every  church;  and  I  found,  the  other  day,  a  little 
record  in  reference  to  the  old  church  at  Amsterdam, 
in  Holland,  which  I  copy  here: — 

"  In  the  church  at  Amsterdam,  there  were  a,bout  three  hundred 
communicants;  and  they  had  for  pastors  two  admirable  men, 
Smith  and  Robertson,  and  four  ruUng  elders,  as  well  as  one  aged 
woman  as  deaconess,  who  served  them  many  years,  though  she 
was  sixty  years  old  when  she  was  chosen.  She  filled  her  office 
honorably,  and  was  an  honor  to  the  congregation.  She  sat  com- 
monly in  a  convenient  place  in  the  church,  with  a  little  birchen 
rod  in  her  hand,  and  held  the  httle  children  in  much  awe,  so  that 
they  disturbed  not  the  assembly.  She  dihgently  visited  the  sick 
and  the  infirm,  especially  women,  and  called  on  younger  sisters, 


440  TEN  years: 

in  case  of  need,  to  watch  over  them  at  night,  and  to  give  other 
assistance  that  might  be  required;  and,  if  they  were  poor,  she 
made  collections  for  them,  among  those  who  were  in  a  condition 
to  give,  or  informed  the  deacons  of  the  case.  She  was  obeyed  as 
a  mother  in  Israel,  and  a  true  handmaid  of  the  Lord." 

With  the  exception  of  "keeping  the  little  children 
in  much  awe,"  which  might  or  might  not  have  been 
desirable,  these  are  precisely  the  functions  which  I 
desire  to  see  formally  renewed.  The  church  at 
Blooming  Grove,  Orange  County,  N.  Y.,  has  existed, 
for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  without  a  creed,  and 
is  governed  by  seven  deacons  and  seven  deaconesses. 

The  following  resolution  was  introduced  by  the 
Rev.  S.  J.  May,  at  the  Unitarian  Conference  which 
met  at  Syracuse,  N.  Y.,  in  the  first  week  of  October 
1866:— 

"Whereas  women  were  among  the  first,  the  most  steadfast, 
and  the  most  fearless  disciples  of  Jesus  Christ;  whereas  women 
have  been,  in  all  ages,  the  most  ready,  to  embrace  the  religion  of 
the  gospel,  and  the  most  constant  and  devoted  members  of  the 
Christian  Church ;  and  whereas,  in  several  denominations,  women 
have  been  among  the  most  effective  preachers  of  Christianity: 
therefore,  Resolved,  That  we.  Liberal  Christians,  should  do  well 
to  encourage  those  women  among  us  who  are  moved  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  devote  themselves  to  the  ministry,  and  should  assist 
them  to  prepare  themselves  in  the  same  manner,  and  to  the  same 
extent,  as  we  deem  necessary  for  young  men." 

The  convention,  having  just  passed  a  resolution  to 
admit  female  delegates  to  the  session  of  1868,  rather 
shrank  from  this  second  vote.  Yet  of  what  use  to 
receive  delegates,  unless  they  feel  free  to  join  in  dis- 


AN    APPENDIX.  441 

-  cussion?  and  what  woman,  likely  to  be  sent  as  a  dele- 
gate by  any  Unitarian  church,  will  ever  address  the 
convention  until  it  more  than  welcomes  the  above 
resolution?  To  the  local  conferences,  women  are 
already  being  elected,  and  will  do  great  good  if  they 
can  get  courage  to  accept  their  membership  practi- 
cally, and  to  speak  when  they  have  any  thing  to  say. 

It  would  not  be  quite  honest  nor  fair  to  those  wo- 
men who  seek  to  enter  the  pulpit,  if  I  did  not  here 
record  my  own  experience  in  connection  with  it. 

I  know  very  well  where  my  natural  sphere  of  work 
lay,  and  could  I  have  had  a  theological  education  in 
my  youth,  or  had  even  the  paths  of  the  ministry  at 
large  been  open  to  women,  I  have  every  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  I  should  be  at  this  moment  a  settled  minis- 
ter. As  it  was,  it  never  entered  my  head  that  the  thing 
was  possible;  and  except  that  I  taught  steadily  in  Sab- 
bath schools,  and  visited  as  steadily  among  the  city 
poor,  I  never  turned  toward  ministerial  work.  In  the 
first  year  of  my  marriage,  now  twenty-two  years  ago, 
my  husband  was  settled  in  the  city  of  Baltimore,  as 
minister  at  large  to  the  degraded  population,  which 
has  a  special  character  (or  want  of  character)  in  a  large 
city,  in  a  slaveholding  State.  I  say  has,  for  I  cannot  yet 
speak  in  the  past  tense.  He  had  daily  schools  of  girls 
and  women,  and  nightly  schools  of  boys  and  men. 
The  latter  were  of  all  ages  from  six  to  forty,  and  had 
been  gathered  together  by  a  great  personal  effort.  In 
this  state  of  things,  my  husband  was  taken  ill.  It  fell 
to  me,  in  the  first  place,  not  only  to  nurse  him,  but  to 


442  TEN  years: 

take  charge  of  his  night-school.  The  ladies  could  do 
very  well  without  me  in  the  day-school;  but  there  was 
no  clergyman,  nor  leading  man  of  character  and  cul- 
ture, who  could  be  depended  upon  to  take  the  general 
■charge  of  the  men  and  boys,  among  whom  were  some 
desperate  characters.  I  went  first  in  a  very  stormy 
night ;  and  my  Irish  servant  took  her  knitting,  and  sat 
upon  the  steps  of  the  platform  while  I  addressed  them. 
It  happened  that  not  a  single  teacher  braved  the  storm; 
and  the  school,  when  I  called  the  roll,  responded  to  the 
number  of  eighty.  I  told  them  that  I  knew  how  dearly 
they  loved  my  husband,  that  he  was  very  ill,  and  that 
the  only  way  in  which  they  could  help  him  was  to  be- 
have so  well  that  he  need  feel  no  anxiety  about  his 
'work.  They  responded  at  once  to  this  appeal,  and  I 
carried  home  the  best  possible  account.  As  Sunday 
drew  near, — this  night-school  having  been  held  on 
Monday, — my  husband  grew  more  ill  and  more  anx- 
ious. He  thought  of  the  large,  mixed  congregation, 
which  met  him  every  week,  and  for  which  no  provision 
had  been  made.  We  were  on  an  outpost  of  our  faith; 
we  could  not  have  summoned  assistance  in  season,  nor 
without  an  expense  we  could  not  well  bear.  I  thought 
the  matter  over;  said  to  myself  that  it  was  only  like  a 
large  Sunday  school;  that  the  fashionable  ladies,  who 
often  dropped  in  to  hear  the  preaching,  would  certainly 
stay  away,  knowing  my  husband  to  be  ill :  so  I  told 
him  quietly  that  I  had  made  arrangements  for  the  Sun- 
day service.  He  was  too  weak  to  make  inquiries,  but 
was  comforted  at  once.    He  was  sick  several  weeks, — 


AN    APPENDIX.  443 

long  enough  for  me  to  relinquish  reading,  and  take  to 
exhortation  in  pure  despair;  but  he  did  not  find  a 
small  congregation  when  he  resumed  his  place,  and 
that  was  my  reward.  Perhaps  no  such  step  was  ever 
taken  more  simply,  or  with  less  idea  of  its  natural 
consequences.  When  I  came  back  to  Boston,  radical 
country  ministers  took  pains  to  ask  me  to  their  pulpits. 
I  shall  not  soon  forget  the  first  time  I  preached  to  a 
large  Unitarian  audience,  with  a  good  mixture  of  city 
people.  It  was  at  South  Hingham;  the  church  was 
crowded;  the  country  covered  with  a  crystalline  mantle 
of  snow,  over  which  a  clear  moon  glimmered.  The 
beauty  of  that  night  is  a  permanent  possession.  So 
it  went  on,  till  I  became,  I  believe  in  the  winter  of  1859 
and  1860,  the  superintendent  of  the  Sunday  school  at 
Indiana-place  Chapel,  in  Boston,  where  I  remained  for 
five  years.  This  broke  up  my  preaching,  for  I  could 
not  leave  town  on  Sundays;  but  it  led  to  my  address- 
ing various  Sunday-school  gatherings,  and  my  being 
asked  to  address  Sunday  schools  when  away  from  home 
in  the  summer.  My  addressing  a  Sunday  school  in 
Greenfield  in  the  summer  of  1865,  while  the  pastor 
of  the  church  was  absent  with  his  regiment,  led,  by  his 
kind  sympathy,  to  my  preaching  in  the  summer  of  1866 
in  the  regular  Unitarian  churches  at  Rowe  and  War- 
wick, as  well  as  doing  irregular  service  in  many  other 
places.  The  church  at  Florence  had  always  shown 
me  a  generous  appreciation;  and  I  was  often  asked 
to  preach  for  Theodore  Parker's  people  at  the  Music 
Hall  and  the  Melodeon.    I  always  declined  to  speak 


444  TEN  years: 

for  this  last  society,  not  because  I  do  not  sympa- 
thize with  their  purposes  in  the  main,  but  because 
I  would  not  consent  to  be  advertised  for  a  religious 
and  especially  a  devotional  service  in  the  city  which 
I  make  my  home.  There  may  be  women  who,  in 
the  present  state  of  things,  can  do  this  innocently  and 
properly;  but  /  cannot  go  into  the  pulpit  myself, 
except  in  the  regular  sequence  of  my  work,  and  at 
the  call  of  duty.  The  gaping  crowd  of  curious  people 
who  would  come  to  look  at  a  woman  in  the  pulpit, 
would  disturb  the  sphere  in  which  it  is  alone  possible 
for  me  to  work.  It  was  the  custom  of  the  Music-Hail 
society  to  advertise  for  every  Sunday,  and  they  de- 
clined to  relinquish  .this  advertisement  on  my  account. 
The  delivering  a  course  of  lectures  in  Hollis-street 
Vestry  in  connection  with  the  Suffolk  Sunday-school 
Union,  in  April,  1866,  showed  me  that  there  was  a 
work  of  criticism  to  be  done, — and  necessary  to  be 
done, — which  I  could  do:  so  in  going  West  to  examine 
the  condition  of  certain  colleges,  in  October,  1866,  I 
gave  it  to  be  understood,  that,  if  I  were  in  any  West- 
ern city  over  Sunday,  I  should  prefer  to  preach  for 
the  Unitarian  minister — giving  him  a  ''labor  of  love" 
— to  addressing  an  audience  at  an  evening  lecture. 
This  interfered  with  my  pecuniary  advantage;  but  I 
believed  it  was  in  my  power  to  enter  some  pulpits 
that  would  not  be  offered  to  all  women,  and  I  desired 
to  do  what  I  could  to  create  a  demand  for  the  preach- 
ing of  women.  In  this  way,  I  preached  for  Robert 
Collyer  in  Chicago,  for  Carlton  Staples  in  Milwaukee, 


AN    APPENDIX.  445 

for  Mr.  Hunting  in  Quincy,  and  in  the  chapels  of 
Oberlin  and  Antioch  Colleges.  I  took  the  whole 
service,  accepting  no  assistance  in  the  reading  or  the 
prayer;  for  it  is  not  well  that  a  woman  who  fills  the 
pulpit  should  seem  to  shrink  from  any  service  there, 
and  sensitive  women  will  always  find  their  self-pos- 
session impaired  by  any  second  influence.  I  received 
the  kindest  sympathy  and  appreciation  from  the 
churches  I  have  mentioned;  and,  in  every  instance 
but  one,  I  received  the  usual  fee  for  my  service,  vol- 
untarily tendered.  I  think  at  least  twenty  other 
churches  would  have  been  open  to  me,  could  I  have 
gone  to  them. 

I  do  not  offer  this  explanation  of  the  manner  in 
which  I  have  been  led  into  the  pulpit,  stupidly,  in 
ignorance  of  the  charge  of  egotism  and  folly  that  may 
be  made  against  me  by  those  who  read  it.  I  have 
borne  harder  things  than  that  charge,  for  the  truth's 
sake;  and  I  hope  that  the  real  motive  of  this  state- 
ment will  be  transparent  to  honest  and  gentle  hearts. 

I  long  to  see  women  preparing  for  this  work,  for 
there  are  very  few  men  in  the  field;  and,  if  there  were 
more  than  enough,  the  pulpit  is  still  an  eminently  fit 
place  for  a  woman.  The  encouragement  I  have  re- 
ceived, will  show  young  women  what  is  open  to 
them.  With  a  few  words  of  counsel  to  those  who 
may  desire  to  speak  in  churches,  I  leave  the  subject. 
The  dress  of  a  woman  in  the  pulpit  should  be  such 
as  will  attract  absolutely  no  attention;  yet  it  should 
be  thoroughly  graceful  and  lady-like.     A  black  silk 


446  TEN  years: 

well  made,  with  collar  and  cuffs  of  fine  linen,  is  the 
best,  with  no  ornament  whatever  save  the  needful 
brooch.  Peculiarity  should  be  avoided.  When  we 
are  trying  to  win  souls  for  heaven,  we  must  not  lose 
them,  because  of  a  ''dress  reform,"  which  may  wait 
patiently,  until  more  important  things  are  achieved. 

Again,  if  the  woman  who  enters  the  pulpit  is  a 
temperance,  an  antislavery,  or  a  woman' s-rights 
lecturer,  it  will  be  better  for  her  to  give  lectures  on 
these  subjects  in  the  week.  In  the  pulpit,  she  should 
subordinate  these  subjects  to  theological  reform,  moral 
appeal,  and  that  attempt  to  stimulate  religious  inter- 
est and  faith  in  which  most  men  fail.  Nor  would  I 
have  her,  whatever  her  station  in  society,  refuse  the 
fee,  small  or  large,  which  shall  be  tendered  her.  If  she 
has  no  need  of  it,  her  "poor"  will  have;  and  it  is  impor- 
tant to  let  the  ministry  of  women  fall  into  the  same 
social  and  congregational  relations  as  that  of  men. 

There  has  been  a  great  change  in  public  feeling 
since  the  day,  not  twelve  years  since,  when  I  heard 
Dr.  Parkman  refuse  Lucretia  Mott  permission  to 
speak  in  the  old  Federal-street  Church. 

Among  historical  instances  of  the  theological  influ- 
ence of  woman,  that  of  the  Countess  Matilda  stands 
pre-eminent;  but  a  book  by  Capefigue,  recently  pub- 
lished at  Paris,  shows,  that  Madame  de  Kriidener  was 
the  first  to  conceive  the  idea  of  the  Holy  Alliance^ 
and  her  influence  over  the  Emperor  Alexander  was 
sufl&cient  to  induce  him  to  propose  what  his  allies  had 
no  power  to  decline.    Her  purpose  was  finally  accom- 


AN    APPENDIX.  447 

plished,  by  her  engaging  the  emperor  in  prayer.  She 
was  finally  exiled,  and  died,  I  believe,  in  the  Crimea. 
It  was  pretended  that  her  preaching' was  dangerous ; 
but,  as  she  did  not  speak  the  Russian,  that  could 
hardly  be  true. 

ART   SCHOOLS. 

An  art  school,  which  started  some  years  ago  in 
Boston,  in  private  hands,  finally  surrendered  its  casts^ 
lithographs,  and  so  forth,  to  the  teachers  of  the  Free 
Art  School  of  the  Lowell  Institute.  The  female 
classes  of  this  school  are  always  crowded,  and  are 
doing  a  great  deal  of  good.  Artists  are  accustomed 
to  say  very  disparaging  things  of  the  school  at  the 
Cooper  Institute;  but  I  visited  it  in  December,  1866, 
and  found  a  very  great  improvement  within  a  few 
years.  Under  Dr.  Rimmer,  a  most  admirable  lecturer 
on  anatomy,  there  has  been  an  infusion  of  new  life. 
The  drawings  from  casts  looked  better  than  I  have 
ever  seen  them.  They  have  a  good  master  in  color, 
and  the  drawing  and  engraving  on  wood  by  the 
pupils  find  a  ready  market.  Two  of  them,  Miss 
Roundtree  and  Miss  Curtis,  are  said  to  have  a  high 
reputation.  I  was  delighted  to  find  a  large  class 
coloring  photographs;  for  heretofore  it  has  been 
almost  impossible  for  women  to  receive  decent  in- 
struction in  this  art.  The  classes  are  all  full;  and 
three  times  the  number  of  pupils  might  be  received^ 
if  there  were  more  light  in  the  large  rooms.  It  is. 
to  be  hoped  Mr.  Cooper  may  some  time  divide  them,, 
and  put  in  gas. 


448  TEN  years: 

I  have  taken  advantage  of  the  residence  in  this 
country  of  a  well-known  member  of  many  societies, 
Mrs.  Elizabeth  Murray,  to  ascertain  what  circum- 
stances Jed  to  the  formation  of  the  Society  of  Female 
Artists,  in  London.  To  Mrs.  Grote,  the  wife  of 
the  historian,  and  Mrs.  Murray  herself,  this  society 
owed  its  existence,  somewhere  in  the  winter  of  1854 
and  1855.  There  is  no  objection  to  it,  so  far  as  I 
know,  except  one  apparent  on  its  catalogues,  the 
present  preponderance  of  distinguished  amateur  ar- 
tists on  the  Board  of  Direction.  I  insert  here  Mrs. 
Murray's  letter  in  reply  to  my  inquiries.  The  best 
artists,  such  as  Rosa  Bonheur  and  Mrs.  Murray  her- 
self, exhibit  with  this  society. 

My  dear  Mrs.  Dall, — On  my  return  to  England,  after  an 
absence  of  many  years,  I  found  that  women  labored  ui-der  very 
disheartening  conditions;  their  professional  occupations  con- 
sisting chiefly  of  teaching,  music  and  singing,  hterature  and  the 
fine  arts.  In  the  latter  department,  they  came  more  under  my 
own  personal  observation;  and  I  found  that,  although  they  were 
countenanced  by  men  individually,  collectively  they  were  per- 
secuted by  men,  seldom  being  permitted  membership  with  any 
public  body,  or,  when  admitted,  were  not  allowed  the  full  privi- 
leges accorded  to  men. 

For  instance:  At  the  Royal  Academy  of  London,  women  are 
not  admitted  at  all  to  membership.  On  the  walls  of  that  exhi- 
bition may  be  seen  the  works  of  women,  which  rank  among  the 
best;  but  here  their  privilege  ends.  They  assist  in  bringing  their 
quota  of  the  entrance  fees,  the  main  source  of  income  of  the  acad- 
emy, while  they  are  debarred  from  all  privileges  and  emoluments. 

The  two  water-color  societies  profess  to  admit  women  as  mem- 


AN    APPENDIX.  449 

bers,  which  they  do  to  a  very  limited  extent;  but  even  here  they 
are  subject  to  the  same  restrictions.  Under  these  circumstances, 
the  project  occurred  to  me  of  founding  a  separate  and  independ- 
ent society,  which  should  include  only  the  works  of  female  artists, 
in  order  to  give  to  those  excluded  from  other  societies,  opportuni- 
ties of  asserting  their  own  powers. 

The  first  step  was  to  get  up  an  exhibition  to  excite  public  sym- 
pathy in  favor  of  the  scheme.  This  was  a  most  difficult  under- 
taking, as  opposition  was  met  with,  not  only  from  men,  but  from 
the  very  women  whose  interests  were  at  stake;  those  who  were 
strong  in  the  profession  fearing  to  lose  caste,  and  the  weaker  ones 
being  afraid  to  act  independently. 

After  much  perseverance  and  explanation,  several  large-minded 
persons  of  the  more  moneyed  and  influential  ranks  in  society 
came  forward,  and  assisted,  by  their  cordial  co-operation,  in 
establishing  a  temporary  comimittee.  Money  was  freely  contrib- 
uted; and  the  society  had  a  fair  start,  opening  to  the  public  a 
very  creditable  exhibition  of  the  works  of  female  artists. 

Finding  that,  for  the  future,  I  must  necessarily  be  absent  from 
England,  I  retired  from  the  Committee  of  Direction. 

The  society  has  continued  in  a  more  or  less  prosperous  con- 
dition up  to  the  present  time,  although  my  plan  of  establishing 
an  adequate  school  of  art  has  not  been  carried  out.  Much  pri- 
vate good  has  been  the  result;  and  I  think  the  class  of  women  for 
whom  the  society  was  founded,  have  been  raised  in  position. 

Believe  me,  dear  madam. 

Very  truly  yours, 
(Signed)  Elizabeth  Murray. 

13,  Pemberton  Square,  Dec.  22,  1866. 

In  Paris,  Rosa  Bonheur  is  now  the  directress,  under 
the  government,  of  the  ficole  Imperiale  de  Dessein, 
established  exclusively  for  young  women. 


450  TEN  years: 


LABOR. 


The  advance  of  women,  as  regards  all  sorts  of  labor, 
in  the  United  States,  has  been  such  as  might  be  ex- 
pected by  watchful  eyes;  and  yet  reports  on  the 
general  question  will  not  read  very  differently  from 
those  published  ten  years  ago.  In  New  York,  women 
are  still  reported -as  making  shirts  at  seventy-five  cents 
a  dozen,  and  overalls  at  fifty  cents.  These  women 
have  two  Protective  Unions  of  their  own,  not  con- 
nected with  the  Workingmen's  Union;  and  most  of 
them  have,  naturally  enough,  sympathized  with  the 
eight-hour  movement,  not  foreseeing,  apparently,  that 
the  necessary  first  result  of  that  movement  would  be  a 
decrease  of  wages,  proportioned  to  the  limitation  of 
time.  Ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  women 
have  been  employed  in  the  public  departments.  North 
and  South.  It  has  been  a  matter  of  necessity,  rather 
than  of  choice.  The  same  causes  combined  to  drive 
women  into  field-labor  and  printing-offices.  All 
through  Minnesota  and  the  surrounding  regions, 
women  voluntarily  assumed  the  whole  charge  of  the 
farms,  in  order  to  send  their  husbands  to  the  field. 
A  very  interesting  account  has  been  recently  pub- 
lished of  a  farm  in  Dongola,  111.,  consisting  of  two 
thousand  acres,  managed  by  a  highly  educated  woman, 

*I  wish  to  say  in  advance,  that  while  the  statistics  in  "The  College"  and 
''The  Market"  are  based  on  a  gold  value,  and  are  wholly  reliable,  I  place  no 
reliance  on  those  furnished  in  this  Appendix.  The  varying  price  of  gold,  and 
of  the  cost  of  provision  and  clothing,  at  the  time  the  tables  are  made,  are 
nowhere  given,  and  are  important  elements  in  a  sound  calculation. 


AN    APPENDIX.  451 

whose  husband  was  a  cavalry  officer.  It  was  a  great 
pecuniary  success.  In  New  Hampshire,  last  summer, 
I  was  shown  open-air  graperies,  wholly  managed  by 
women,  in  several  different  localities;  and  was  very 
happy  to  be  told  that  my  own  influence  had  largely 
contributed  to  the  experiment.  In  England,  field-labor 
is  now  recommended  to  women  by  Lord  Houghton, 
better  known  as  Mr.  Monckton  Milnes,  who  considers 
it  a  healthful  resource  against  the  terrible  abuses  of 
factory  life.  At  a  meeting  of  the  British  Association, 
last  fall,  he  produced  a  well-written  letter  from  a 
woman  engaged  in  brick-making.  This  letter  claimed 
that  brick-making  paid  three  times  better  than  factory 
labor,  and  ten  times  better  than  domestic  service.  In 
addition  to  persons  heretofore  mentioned,  in  this  coun- 
try, as  employing  women  in  out-door  work,  I  would 
name  Mr.  Knox,  the  great  fruit-grower,  who,  on  his 
place  near  Pittsburg,  Pa.,  employs  two  or  three  hun- 
dred. I  have  seen  it  stated,  that,  during  the  last  four 
years,  twenty  thousand  women  have  entered  printing 
offices.  I  do  not  know  the  basis  of  this  calculation; 
but,  judging  from  my  local  statistics,  I  should  think  it 
must  be  nearly  correct. 

To  the  Committee  of  the  Massachusetts  Legisla- 
ture on  the  eight-hour  movement,  the  following  towns 
report  concerning  the  wages  and  labor  of  women,  in 
1866:— 

Boston. — Glass  Company,  wages  from  $4.00  to  $8.00  a  week 
Domestics,  from  $1.50  to  $3.00  per  week.  Seamstresses,  $1.00 
a  day.     Makers  of  fancy  goods,  40  to  50  cents  arday. 


452  TEN  years: 

Brookline. — Washerwomen,  $1.00  a  day. 

Charlestown  and  New  Bedford  are  ashamed  to  name  the 
wages,  but  humbly  confess  that  they  are  very  low. 

Chicopee  pays  women  90  per  cent  the  wages  of  men. 

Concord  pays  from  8  to  10  cents  an  hour. 

Fairhaven  gives  to  female  photographers  one-third  the  wages 
of  men. 

Hadley  pays  three-fourths;  to  domestics,  one-third;  seam- 
stresses, one-quarter  to  one-third. 

HoLYOKE,  in  its  paper-mills,  offers  one-third  to  one-haK. 

Lancaster  pays  for  pocket-book  making  from  50  to  75  cents 
a  day. 

Lee  pays  in  the  paper-mills  one-half  the  wages  of  men. 

Lowell. — The  Manufacturing  Company  averages  90  cents 
a  day.     The  Baldwin  Mills  pay  60  to  75  cents  a  day. 

Newton  pays  its  washerwomen  75  cents  a  day,  or  10  cents  an 
hour. 

North  Becket  pays  to  women  one-third  the  wages  of  men. 

Northampton  pays  $5.00  a  week. 

Salisbury,  for  sewing  hats,  $1.00  a  day. 

South  Reading,  on  rattan  and  shoe  work,  $5.00  to  $10.00  a 
week. 

South  Yarmouth,  half  the  wages  of  men,  or  less. 

Taunton,  one-third  to  two-thirds  the  wages  of  men. 

Walpole  pays  two-thirds  the  wages  of  men. 

Wareham  pays  to  its  domestics  from  18  to  30  cents  a  day;  to 
seamstresses,  50  cents  to  $1.00. 

Wilmington  pays  two-thirds  the  wages  of  men. 

Winchester  pays  dressmakers  $1.00  a  day;  washerwomen, 
12  cents  an  hour. 

WoBURN  keeps  its  women  to  work  from  11  to  13  hours,  and 
pays  them  two-thirds  the  wages  of  men. 

On  the  better  side  of  the  question.  Fall  River  testifies  that 
women,  in  competition,  earn  nearly  as  much  as  men. 


AN    APPENDIX.  453 

Lawrence,  from  the  Pacific  Mills,  that  the  women  are  liberally 
paid.  We  should  like  to  see  the  figm-es.  The  Washington  Mills 
pay  from  $1.00  to  $2.00  a  day. 

Stoneham  gives  them  $1.50  per  week. 

Waltham  reports  the  wages  of  the  watch-factory  as  very 
remunerative.  In  1860,  I  reported  this  factorj'  as  paying  from 
$2.50  to  $4.00  a  week.  Here,  also,  we  should  prefer  figures  to  a 
general  statement. 

Boston  has  now  many  manufactories  of  paper  collars.  Each 
girl  is  expected  to  turn  out  1,800  daily.  The  wages  are  $7.00 
a  week.  In  the  paper-box  factory,  more  than  200  girls  are 
employed;  but  I  cannot  ascertain  their  wages,  and  therefore  sup- 
pose them  to  be  low.  I  know  individuals  who  earn  here  $6.00 
a  week;  but  that  must  be  above  the  average. 

The  best-looking  body  of  factory  operatives  that  I 
have  ever  seen  are  those  employed  in  the  silk  and  rib- 
bon mills  on  Boston  Neck,  lately  under  the  charge  of 
Mr.  J.  H.  Stephenson,  and  those  at  the  Florence  Silk 
Mills  in  Northampton,  owned  by  Mr.  S.  L.  Hill.  The 
classes,  libraries,  and  privileges  appertaining  to  these 
mills  make  them  the  best  examples  I  know;  and  this 
is  shown  in  the  faces  and  bearing  of  the  women. 

We  are  always  referred  to  political  economy,  when 
we  speak  of  the  low  wages  of  women;  but  a  little 
investigation  will  show  that  other  causes  co-operate 
with  those,  which  can  be  but  gradually  reached,  to 
determine  their  rates. 

1.  The  wilfulness  of  women  themselves,  which, 
when  I  see  them  in  positions  I  have  helped  to  open 
to  them,  fills  me  with  shame  and  indignation. 

2.  The   unfair  competition,   proceeding  from  the 


454  TEN  years: 

voluntary  labor,  in  mechanical  ways,  of  women  well 
to  do. 

For  the  first,  we  cannot  greatly  blame  the  women 
whom  employers  choose  for  their  good  looks,  for 
expecting  to  earn  their  wages  through  them,  rather 
than  by  the  proper  discharge  of  their  duties.  Their 
conduct  is  not  the  less  shameful  on  that  account ;  but 
I  seem  to  see  that  only  time  and  death  and  ruin  will 
educate  them. 

For  the  second,  we  must  strive  to  develop  a  public 
sentiment,  which,  while  it  continues  to  hold  labor 
honorable,  will  stamp  with  ignominy  any  women 
who,  in  comfortable  country  homes,  compete  with  the 
workwomen  of  great  cities.  There  are  thousands  of 
wealthy  farmers'  wives  to-day,  who  just  as  much 
drive  other  women  to  sin  and  death  as  if  they  led 
them  with  their  own  hands  to  the  houses  in  which 
they  are  ultimately  compelled  to  take  refuge.  Still 
further,  it  has  come  to  be  known  to  me,  that  in  Bos- 
ton, and  I  am  told  in  New  York  also,  wealthy  women, 
who  do  not  even  do  their  own  sewing,  have  the  con- 
trol of  the  finer  kinds  of  fancy  work,  dealing  with  the 
stores  which  sell  such  work,  under  various  disguises. 
I  cannot  prove  these  words,  but  they  will  strike  con- 
viction to  the  hearts  of  the  women  themselves,  and  I 
wish  them  to  have  some  significance  for  men;  for,  if 
these  women  had  the  pocket-money  which  their  taste 
and  position  require,  they  would  never  dream  of  such 
competition.  One  thing  these  men  should  know,  that 
such  women  are  generally  known  to  their  employ- 


AN   APPENDIX.  455 

ers,  and  their  domestic  relations  are  judged  accord- 
ingly. 

The  recent  investigations  into  factory  labor  in  Eng- 
land concern  rather  the  condition  than  the  wages  of 
the  women.  At  flower-making,  11,000  girls  are  em- 
ployed from  fourteen  to  eighteen  hours  daily.  In 
hardware  shops  and  factories,  they  work,  from  six 
years  of  age,  fourteen  hours  daily.  In  glass  factories, 
5,000  women  are  employed,  from*  nine  years  of  age 
and  upwards,  eighteen  hours  daily.  In  tobacco  fac- 
tories, 7,000  women  are  employed,  under  conditions 
of  great  physical  suffering.  As  knitters,  from  six 
years  old,  they  work  fourteen  hours  daily  for  Is.  3d. 
a  week ! 

This  terrible  state  of  things  is  partly  owing  to  com- 
petition with  the  labor  of  French  machinery.  A  great 
deal  of  ignorant  prejudice  against  machines  is  one  of 
its  results.  In  Sheffield,  files  are  still  made  by  hand; 
while  here,  in  America,  we  make  watches  by  ma- 
chinery! The  disposition  of  the  whole  community, 
both  here  and  in  Great  Britain,  towards  this  labor 
question,  is  kindly.  It  has  become  a  momentous 
social  problem.  During  the  fifteen  years  that  my 
attention  has  been  riveted  to  this  subject,  I  have  seen 
a  great  change  in  public  feeling. 

I  have  received  the  Sixth  Annual  Report  of  the 
Society  for  the  Employment  of  Women,  of  which 
the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury  is  President,  and  Mr.  Glad- 
stone a  Vice-President.  This  society  has  trained 
some  hair-dressers,  clerks,  glass-engravers,  book-keep- 


456  TEN  years: 

ers,  and  telegraph  operators;  but  its  greatest  service 
consists  in  the  constant  issue  of  tracts,  to  influence 
developing  public  opinion.  Such  an  association 
should  be  started  in  New  York. 

I  should  have  been  glad  to  inaugurate  in  Boston, 
during  the  last  six  years,  several  important  industrial 
movements.  The  war  checked  the  enthusiasm  I  had 
succeeded  in  rousing;  and  I  have  not  been  able  to 
pause  in  my  special  work  of  collecting  and  observing 
facts  to  stimulate  it  afresh,  or  to  solicit  personally  the 
necessary  means.  How  easy  it  would  be  for  a  few 
wealthy  women  to  test  these  experiments ! 

I  would  first  establish  a  mending-school;  and,  hav- 
ing taught  women  how  to  darn  and  patch  in  a  proper 
manner,  I  would  scatter  them  through  the  country,  to 
open  shops  of  their  own.  As  it  is,  I  do  not  know  a 
city,  in  which  a  place  exists  to  which  a  housekeeper 
could  send  a  week's  wash,  sure  that  it  would  be  re- 
turned with  every  button-hole,  button,  hem,  gusset, 
and  stay  in  proper  condition.  These  mending-shops 
should  take  on  apprentices,  who  should  be  sent  to  the 
house  to  do  every  sort  of  repairing  with  a  needle. 

I  would  open  another  school  to  train  women  to  every 
kind  of  trivial  service,  now  clumsily  or  inadequately 
performed  by  men.  If,  for  instance,  you  now  send  to 
an  upholsterer  to  have  an  old  window-blind  or  blind- 
fixture  repaired,  his  apprentice  will  replace  the  entire 
thing  at  a  proportionate  cost,  leaving  the  old  screw- 
holes  to  gape  at  the  gazer.  I  would  train  women  to 
wash,  repair,  and  replace  in  part,  and  to  carry  in  their 


AN    APPENDIX.  457 

pockets  little  vials  of  white  or  red  lead  to  fill  the  gap-^ 
ing  holes.  Full  employment  could  be  found  for  such 
apprentices. 

At  Milwaukee,  in  October,  1866,  I  found  a  young 
woman  well  established  as  a  hair-dresser.  She  be- 
longed to  a  superior  class  of  society,  and  encountered 
great  opposition  in  carrying  out  her  plan.  ''People 
would  treat  her  much  better,"  said  a  resident  clergy- 
man to  me,  in  detailing  her  struggles,  "if  she  were  the 
willing  mistress  of  a  rich  man."  She  had  no  taste  for 
teaching,  but  I  found  in  her  a  cultivated  and  pleasant 
companion.  Since  the  war  began,  a  good  many 
women  have  been  employed  as  clerks  in  the  public 
offices  at  Washington.  There  is  now  some  talk  of 
their  removal.  If  this  should  occur,  it  would  be  in  con- 
sequence of  unfit  appointments,  and  the  habits  and 
annoyances  which  demoralized  women  have  imposed 
upon  the  departments.  The  proper  place  to  begin 
removals  is  obviously  with  the  corrupt  men,  who 
have  pensioned  their  mistresses  out  of  the  public 
coffers. 

In  Chicago,  I  found  Fanny  Paine,  a  girl  of  thir- 
teen, acting  as  paymaster  to  the  Eagle  Works  Manu- 
facturing Company.  She  will,  in  one  year,  pay  out  a 
quarter  of  a  million  of  dollars.  She  keeps  the  time- 
sheets,  pay-roll,  and  account-book  of  each  of  the  four 
hundred  men  employed.  She  receives  about  five 
thousand  dollars  a  week  from  the  bank,  and  makes 
the  proper  balances  with  the  cashier,  after  paying  her 
men.    She  knows  every  man,  earns  six  hundred  and. 


458  TEN  years: 

twenty-five  dollars  per  annum,  and  is  represented  as 
perfectly  robust.  It  gave  me  no  pleasure  to  find  so 
young  a  girl  in  a  position  so  exposed.  I  would  have 
her  uncommon  faculties  mature  in  quiet.  The  ''Lon- 
don Athenaeum"  lately  said,  "A  phenomenon  worthy 
of  consideration  is  the  increasing  number  of  female 
players  on  stringed  instruments  in  France.  At  the 
examination  of  the  conservatory  this  year.  Mademoi- 
selle Boulay  gained  a  first,  Mademoiselle  Castellan  a 
second  prize.  The  violoncello  has  its  professional 
students  among  the  gentler  sex.  Madame  Viardot  is 
about  to  turn  her  experience  to  account,  by  editing  a 
classical  selection  of  music." 

A  very  dear  friend  of  mine, — Charlotte  Hill,  of 
West  Gouldsborough,  in  Maine, — born  a  farmer's 
daughter,  too  deaf  to  teach,  and  too  delicate  to  sew, 
had  an  intense  love  for  music.  She  taught  herself 
the  violin.  She  then  made  a  profession  for  herself  by 
offering  to  play  it  at  rustic  parties;  and  one  year,  in 
the  pursuit  of  this  profession,  she  travelled  more  than 
eight  hundred  miles,  and  laid  by  three  hundred  dol- 
lars. This  money  was  not  spent  on  jewelry,  but  on 
the  best  books  that  our  best  publishers  could  furnish. 
It  takes  a  genius  to  do  a  thing  like  that, — trust  in 
one's  self,  and  a  far  deeper  trust  in  God;  but  there  are 
multitudes  of  women  whom  suggestion  and  sympathy 
would  lead  into  such  thriving  ways. 

I  have  heard  recently  of  a  young  girl  in  Shirley, 
who  supports  herself  and  her  father  by  gunning.  She 
not  only  sends  game  to  market,   but  prepares  the 


AN    APPENDIX.  459 

breasts  of  birds  for  ornamental  purposes.  She  has 
bought  her  own  house  by  her  profits. 

When  I  was  at  Florence,  Mass.,  in  the  summer  of 
1865,  I  drove  over  to  the  famous  button-factory  at 
Easthampton.  This  great  industry  was  founded  by 
a  woman;  and,  as  I  had  often  heard  mythical  stories 
about  it,  I  wished  to  get  at  the  facts.  I  found  Sam- 
uel Williston,  a  very  good  specimen  of  a  fine  old 
English  gentleman.  He  is  a  man  between  sixty  and 
seventy,  with  hair  and  beard  as  white  as  snow.  I 
found  him  in  a  blue  coat  with  bright  buttons,  a 
buff  waistcoat,  and  white  pants,  and  very  willing  to 
tell  his  wife's  story,  if  it  would  "encourage  other 
women." 

"My  wife's  father,"  he  went  on  to  say,  "was  a  Mr. 
Graves.  He  was  a  poor  man,  with  a  large  family  of 
children.  His  wife  and  daughters  used  to  go  over  to 
Northampton  to  get  knitting  from  the  stores.  One 
day,  all  the  knitting  had  been  given  out;  and  Mrs. 
Graves  showed  her  disappointment  so  plainly  that  the 
shopman  asked  her  to  take  some  buttons  to  cover. 
In  those  days,  all  our  buttons  came  from  England, 
where  they  were  made  by  hand;  but  our  tailor  had 
got  out,  and  wanted  some  for  coats  and  vests  in  a 
hurry.  Mrs.  Graves  made  about  a  gross,  all  her 
daughters  helping,  and  did  it  so  well  that  the  work 
was  continued.  Then  my  wife  took  it  up.  She  got 
some  of  the  work  from  her  mother.  That  was  in 
1825-26, — forty  years  ago.  I  had  invested  in  merino 
sheep.     I  had  ninety  ewes  and  a  large  farm;  but  1 


460  TEN  years: 

was  a  young  man,  and  found  it  hard  to  get  along. 
It  looked  as  though  this  business  would  help.  My 
wife  wanted  to  control  the  work.  She  hired  girls  to 
help  her,  and  took  all  the  orders  that  came.  J.  D» 
Whitney  and  Hayden  &  Whitney  sold  all  she  could 
make.  When  she  had  had  the  business  a  year,  I  went 
to  Boston,  Providence,  Hartford,  New  Haven,  New 
York, — in  short,  I  went  all  round, — with  samples. 
I  got  my  orders  at  first  hand,  and  from  that  the  busi- 
ness began. 

"When  we  heard  that  machine-made  buttons  had 
been  introduced  into  England,  we  sent  over  to  buy  the 
right  to  make  them,  and  Mr.  Hayden  introduced  them 
here. 

"  Every  man  must  have  his  small  beginnings,"  added 
Mr.  Williston,  with  an  embarrassed  blush;  ''but,  when 
a  man  has  such  a  wife  as  mine,  he  is  lucky."  ' 

It  is  said  that  nearly  a  million  of  dollars  is  invested 
in  this  button  business  at  Easthampton.  The  Willis- 
tons  are  Congregational  Christians;  and  the  ''Round 
Table"  stated  lately,  that  the  wealth  thus  accumu- 
lated, besides  being  of  great  local  value  in  developing 
the  resources  of  the  State,  had  estabUshed  one  semi- 
nary, built  three  churches,  and  assisted  colleges  and 
schools  without  number. 

It  is  very  rare  that  the  labor  of  women  becomes 
consolidated  into  capital;  but  there  is  no  reason  why 
it  should  not.  The  mother  of  James  Freeman  Clarke, 
whose  name  I  use  here  in  compliance  with  her  own 
expressed  desire,  was  a  wonderful  illustration  of  what 


AN   APPENDIX.  461 

common  sense  and  determination  will  accomplish. 
The  petted  darling  of  a  wealthy  family,  Madame 
Clarke  found  herself  summoned,  by  her  husband's  ill- 
ness and  early  death,  to  retrieve,  almost  unaided,  the 
fortunes  of  six  children.  The  first  money  which  she 
could  lay  aside,  at  the  head  of  a  boarding-house,  lifted 
the  mortgage  from  a  small  property  which  she  knew 
she  was  to  inherit,  and  which  she  felt  sure  would  in- 
crease in  value.  For  this  property  she  ultimately  re- 
ceived her  own.  price,  being,  to  the  great  amazement 
of  applicants,  her  own  ''man  of  business"  in  all  nego- 
tiations. The  small  sum  it  yielded  she  put  out  at 
interest  in  new  States,  where  money  was  scarce,  and 
multiplied  it  tenfold  before  she  died,  not  by  careless 
speculation,  but  by  investing  it  wisely  in  the  heart  of 
the  great  cities  of  Chicago  and  Milwaukee,  by  buying 
what  she  saw  with  her  own  eyes  to  be  valuable.  ''I 
want  women  to  know  how  to  manage  their  own  con- 
cerns as  I  did,''  she  would  say.  ''It  only  takes  a  little 
common  sense.  Women  ought  not  to  give  up  their 
property  to  men,  or  even  ask  their  advice  about  it. 
The  best  men  will  prop  up  their  shaky  plans  with  a 
woman's  money;  but  women  should  watch  men,  see 
where  shrewd  men  put  their  money,  and  do  as  they 
do,  not  as  they  say." 

I  am  sorry  that  the  purpose  of  this  volume  does 
not  permit  me  to  show  how  this  noble  woman  used 
the  money  she  made  for  the  profit,  the  religious  ad- 
vancement, and  the  bodily  comfort  of  those  who 
seemed  to  need  its  aid. 


462  TEN  years: 

One  other  woman,  whose  name  I  am  not  permitted 
to  mention,  deserves  to  be  spoken  of  in  this  connec- 
tion. She  was  an  orphan,  and  began  life  as  a  factory- 
girl  with  twelve  cents  and  a  half.  Her  father  had 
never  dreamed  of  any  need  to  educate  a  daughter. 
She  took  a  sister  into  the  factory  with  her;  and,  while 
one  worked,  the  other  went  to  school, — my  friend 
opening  a  dressmaker's  shop,  at  times,  to  speed  the 
process.  While  in  the  mills,  she  secured,  by  a  wise 
firmness,  many  privileges  for  the  girls.  She  married, 
and,  after  the  death  of  an  only  child,  sought  to  make 
herself  happy,  by  being  of  use;  and  opened,  for  the 
girls  whose  wages  had  been  reduced,  a  Protective 
Union  shoe-store,  taking  all  that  one  man  and  eight 
apprentices  could  make  daily.  At  last,  she  borrowed 
a  hundred  dollars,  and  went  to  Lynn,— the  first 
woman  that  ever  bought  goods  there.  She  soon  con- 
trolled the  prices  of  the  trade,  opened  a  second  store, 
and  finally  bought  out  the  Union. 

Part  of  her  store  she  devoted  to  fancy  goods,  and 
for  seven  years  and  a  half,  did  all  the  buying  in  Bos- 
ton. She  then  went  to  Philadelphia,  leaving  the 
stores  in  her  husband's  charge,  and  took  her  degree  at 
Pennsylvania  College.  After  this,  she  lectured  on 
Physiology  throughout  New  England,  being  often 
profitably  employed  by  the  corporations  to  lecture  to 
the  girls.  By  this  time,  she  owned  her  horse  and  car- 
riage, her  house,  and  twenty  thousand  dollars,  beside 
having  a  good  practice  in  a  country  town.  Circum- 
stances then  carried  her  to  California,  where,  in  three 


AN    APPENDIX.  463 

years  and  a  half,  she  made  thirteen  thousand  dollars, 
partly  by  her  profession,  and  partly  by  buying  up 
Government  vouchers,  in  which  the  men  at  the  Navy 
Yard  were  paid.  She  gave  gold,  and  received  green- 
backs. Before  she  left  the  State,  one  of  its  most 
eminent  physicians  came  to  her  to  know  by  what 
secret  she  cured  patients  whom  he  had  given  up. 
She  showed  him  the  errors  of  his  own  practice; 
and,  when  she  returned  to  New  England,  left,  with 
perfect  faith,  her  patients  in  his  hands. 

If  this  woman  were  not  still  living,  I  should  wish 
to  record  the  details  of  her  life;  but  they  suggest  so 
much,  that  I  have  not  thought  it  right  to  suppress 
them  altogether. 

Mr.  Thayer  and  two  ladies  have  lately  attempted, 
in  Boston,  at  No.  28,  Ash  Street,  a  small  experiment 
in  the  way  of  a  lodging-house  for  girls.  This  was 
first  suggested  to  the  ladies,  by  the  misfortunes  of  a 
young  woman  who  came  under  their  notice.  They 
tried  to  hire  a  house,  but  found  it  cheaper  to  buy; 
Mr.  Thayer  being  responsible  for  half  the  expense, 
and  each  of  the  ladies  for  one-quarter.  The  house 
was  furnished  at  the  cost  of  friends.  It  has  gas  and 
water  in  nearly  every  room,  and  shelters  29  girls. 
They  pay  for  light,  rent,  lodging,  and  fire,  repairs  and 
service,  $1.50  per  week,  and  $1.25.  There  are  two 
single  beds  in  most  of  the  rooms.  The  matron  keeps 
an  exact  account  of  her  expenditure;  and  each  week 
the  stores  are  weighed  by  one  of  the  ladies,  the  waste 
being  charged,  as  well  as  the  marketing,  to  the  girls. 


464  TEN  years: 

The  board,  so  managed,  costs  each  girl  $1.75  a  week. 
Some  of  the  girls  wash  for  themselves  in  the  evening, 
and  a  woman  is  hired  for  the  house  once  a  week. 
They  take  care  of  their  own  rooms.  The  matron 
employs  a  cook.  There  are  only  two  rules, — that 
every  girl  shall  be  in  at  10  p.  m.,  and  that  a  week's 
notice  shall  be  given  when  any  inmate  desires  to 
leave.  No  supervision  is  exercised  except  of  the 
stores  and  the  matron's  accounts.  The  house  was 
opened  Dec.  15,  1866,  and  is  a  success  according  to 
its  plan. 

Grateful  as  I  am  to  see  thjs  attempt  made,  I  can- 
not feel  that  this  plan  should  be  followed  for  the  fu- 
ture. Girls  do  not  wish  to  receive  charity,  nor  can 
any  experiment  be  thoroughly  successful,  which  does 
not  pay,  in  the  long-run,  a  fair  percentage  on  the  cost 
of  house  and  furniture.  Now,  $4.00  a  week  is,  in  my 
estimation,  only  the  fair  cost  price  of  the  style  of 
board  and  living  which  these  girls  receive;  and  it 
<;ould  not  be  kept  at  that  under  average  manage- 
ment. 

I  do  not  know  the  cost  of  the  house,  but  it  would 
certainly  rent  for  $600.  The  taxes  upon  it  would  be, 
at  least,  $120. 

Now,  let  us  suppose  that  30  girls  occupy  it,  each 
paying  the  highest  rent  of  $1.50  per  week,  which  is 
$180  a  month.  In  13  months,  they  would  pay 
$2340;  a  sum  which  should  cover,  not  only  house 
rent,  house  and  water  taxes,  light,  lodging,  fire,  repairs, 
and  service,  but  the  original  cost  of  furniture  and  the 


AN   APPENDIX.  465 

annual  replenishing.  I  am  sure  my  estimate  of 
the  rent  and  taxes  is  beneath  the  real  value  of  both; 
and  it  is  evident,  that  no  efforts  to  benefit  this  class, 
on  a  large  scale,  will  succeed,  unless  made  to  pay 
better:  companies  will  undertake  only  profitable 
work.  I  want  to  see  girls  unite  to  furnish  them- 
selves, in  a  still  more  modest  way,  with  what  they 
need;  and  I  wish  to  see  a  system  of  cooking-houses 
established,  which  shall  simplify  the  whole  matter. 

In  New  York,  a  Working-women's  Home  is  about 
to  be  established,  the  plan  of  which  was  long  since 
submitted  to  the  public.  A  building  has  been  pur- 
chased on  Elizabeth  Street,  which  will  afford  ac- 
commodations for  four  hundred  persons.  For  this, 
$100,000  has  been  paid,  and  $25,000  more  will  be 
expended  in  fitting  it  up.  Half  the  amount  has 
already  been  raised;  and  the  managers  are  making 
strong  efforts  to  collect  the  remainder.  Of  its  objects, 
the  ** Evening  Post"  says, — 

"In  this  Home  will  be  found  clean,  well- ventilated  rooms, 
wholesome  food,  and  facilities  for  education  and  seK-improvement. 
Girls  exposed  to  the  temptations  of  a  city  life  will  be  surrounded 
by  both  moral  and  Christian  influences. 

"The  institution  is  iatended  to  benefit  a  class  of  women  who 
now  find  it  impossible,  with  their  slender  means,  to  procure  com- 
fortable homes,  and  are  forced  to  live  where  moral  purity,  as 
well  as  health,  is  endangered. 

"It  is  well  known  that  famiUes  and  boarding-house  keepers 
almost  always  object  to  female  boarders,  and  that  many  thou- 
sands of  sewing-women  find  it  difficult  to  obtain  quarters.  Arti- 
ficial flower-makers,  book-folders,  hoop-skirt  manufacturers, 
packers  of  confectionery,  &c.,  are  compelled,  if  deprived  of  paren- 
31 


466  TEN  years: 

tal  shelter,  to  accept  such  homes  and  accommodations  as  the 
very  Hmited  resources  will  command. 

"It  is  not  intended  to  make  this  a  charitable  institution;  but 
the  prices  will  be  made  so  moderate  as  to  be  within  the  means 
of  those  who  are  to  be  benefited  by  it,  while,  at  the  same  time, 
the  establishment  will  be  self-sustaining." 

Mr.  Halliday  says  of  it, — 

"The  whole  expense  of  first  purchase,  alterations,  and  furniture, 
will  be  about  $140,000.  Messrs.  Peter  Cooper,  James  Lenox, 
James  Brown,  Stewart  Brown,  William  H.  Aspinwall,  E.  J. 
Woolsey  and  Mrs.  C.  L.  Spencer,  have,  unsolicited,  each  contrib- 
uted one  thousand  dollars.  Twenty  thousand  dollars  has  been 
appropriated  on  condition  that  we  obtained  a  like  amount  in 
donations.  We  expect  to  have  accommodations  for  nearly  five 
hundred,  and  the  charge  for  board  and  washing  will  be  from  three 
dollars  and  a  quarter  to  three  and  a  haK  per  week. 

"There  will  be  parlors,  reading  room  and  free  library,  and 
ample  bathing  rooms.  None  of  good  reputation  will  be  refused 
admission;  no  others  can  become  members  of  the  family." 

It  is  hoped  to  open  the  institution  by  the  first  of 
June. 

A  Young  Women's  Christian  Association  was  or- 
ganized in  Boston  in  May,  1866,  under  the  auspices  of 
Mrs.  Henry  F.  Durant.  Furnished  rooms  have  been 
provided  at  27,  Chauncy  Street,  where  young  women 
can  obtain  information  in  regard  to  employment, 
boarding-Kouses,  and  so  on.  The  applications  aver- 
age one  hundred  a  month;  and  the  association  seeks 
to  establish  a  home,  where  there  will  be  a  restaurant 
for  furnishing  meals,  at  cost,  to  young  women  only, 


AN   APPENDIX.  467 

a  free  reading  and  library  room,  evening  schools, 
rooms  for  social  purposes,  and  temporary  lodging- 
rooms.  This  is  a  most  desirable  thing  to  do;  but  it 
will  not  be  of  permanent  benefit,  if  it  puts  into  a 
false  position  any  girls  capable  of  self-support.  The 
funds  of  wise  and  kind  people  must  start  all  such 
movements;  but,  to  be  useful,  they  must  be,  not  only 
in  appearance,  but  in  reality,  self-supporting. 

During  the  summer  of  1866,  Octavia  Hill,  of  Lon- 
don, a  grand-daughter  of  the  celebrated  Dr.  South- 
wood  Smith,  reports  that,  after  conferring  with  John 
Ruskin,  she  had  hired  houses  for  poor  tenants.  She 
put  them  into  good  order,  and  kept  them  in  it.  She 
would  allow,  in  her  tenants,  neither  overcrowding  nor 
arrears  of  rent.  She  had  no  middle-men.  The  experi- 
ment was  wholly  successful,  and  paid  at  once  five  per 
cent. 

Mr.  Ruskin's  lodging-houses,  as  they  are  called,  are 
the  best  that  have  ever  been  established  in  London. 
They  furnish  the  cheapest  and  cleanest  lodgings  for 
the  poor,  yet  pay  a  good  dividend.  They  are  entirely 
in  the  hands  of  Miss  Hill,  as  Mr.  Ruskin  himself  is 
more  skilful  to  remedy  any  social  excrescence  than 
patient  to  bear  with  it.  He  forgets,  I  think,  what  he 
once  wrote  concerning  the  soul  that  denies  itself  an 
encounter  with  pain. 

I  have  mentioned,  in  the  body  of  this  book,  the 
great  number  of  women  who  have  entered  printing- 
offices  since  1860.  I  have  thought  that  it  might  help 
women  in  some  other  departments  of  labor,  to  under- 


468  TEN  years: 

stand  how  some  of  these  changes  were  effected,  and 
in  what  manner  advantages  have  been  secured,  which 
might  easily  have  been  lost.  In  a  town  that  I  know 
of,  a  weekly  religious  paper  was  printed  by  eight  wo- 
men. The  most  experienced  acted  as  foreman;  and 
when,  in  the  second  year  of  the  war,  strikes  began  in 
the  printing-offices,  a  friend  directed  her  attention  to 
the  fact,  and  showed  her  how  to  meet  a  strike,  should 
it  come,  as  it  did,  into  her  own  town.  As  soon  as  she 
heard  of  it,  she  consulted  with  the  rest  of  the  hands. 
Seeing  a  possible  though  by  no  means  a  certain  ad- 
vantage, they  agreed  to  be  bound  by  her  action  in 
such  an  event.  At  last,  the  hands  employed  on  the 
daily  evening  paper  of  the  town  struck,  and  the  pub- 
lisher knew  not  what  to  do.  The  girl  went  to  him, 
told  him  she  would  bring  seven  able  hands  with  her, 
and  was  accepted  at  once.  He  was  mean  enough  to 
offer  half-pay,  which  she  peremptorily  refused.  The 
eight  women  entered  the  office  on  full  pay.  They  had 
not  been  there  a  week,  before  every  body  rejoiced  in 
the  change.  There  was  no  swearing  and  no  drinking, 
but  a  quiet  work-room.  At  the  end  of  a  month,  the 
disappointed  men  offered  to  return:  their  services 
were  declined,  but  the  publisher  was  mean  enough  to 
go  to  his  foreman.  ''My  men  are  ready  to  come 
back/'  said  he:  ''I  have  no  fault  to  find  with  you,  but 
I  can  no  longer  give  you  full  wages.'' — ''Do  as  you 
please,"  replied  the  girl:  "you  cannot  have  us  for  any 
less;"  and,  as  the  whole  seven  said  amen,  the  pub- 
lisher had  nothing  to  do  but  to  keep  them.     The 


AN    APPENDIX.  469 

advantage  that  flowed  from  union  and  good  sense  in 
this  case  are  evident,  and  could  easily  be  imitated 
in  many  directions.  During  the  past  winter,  Miss 
Stebbens,  of  Chickasaw  County,  Iowa,  has  been  ap- 
pointed notary  public;  such  appointments  being  still 
so  rare  as  to  make  the  fact  worth  recording. 

LAW 

The  ''British  Medical  Journal"  was  lately  reported 
to  have  said  that  more  English  women  seek  for  admis- 
sion to  the  bar  than  for  entrance  into  medical  practice. 
If  this  be  true,  it  is  in  marked  contrast  to  the  state  of 
things  in  this  country.  Some  women  have  studied 
law  here;  many  have  written  in  lawyers'  officers;  but, 
so  far  as  I  know,  not  one  has  desired  to  be  admitted 
to  the  bar:  and,  in  England  itself,  so  far  as  I  know, 
Miss  Shedden  remains  the  single  example  of  a  wo- 
man pleading  in  a  court  of  law. 

The  number  of  laws  passed  the  last  six  years,  af- 
fecting the  condition  of  women,  has  been  very  small. 

The  New- York  Assembly  in  February,  1865,  passed 
a  law  putting  the  legal  evidence  of  a  married  woman 
on  the  same  basis  as  if  she  were  a  feme  sole.  The 
Massachusetts  Legislature  have  legalized  marriage 
ceremonies  performed  by  an  ordained  woman;  and  in 
January,  1866,  Mr.  Peckham,  of  Worcester,  moved  for 
a  joint  special  committee  "to  consider  in  what  way  a 
more  just  and  equal  compensation  shall  be  awarded 
to  female  labor."  On  the  4th  of  April,  just  past, 
Samuel  E.  Sewall  and  others  petitioned  for  leave  to 


470  TEN  years: 

appoint  women  on  school  committees.  It  is  difficult 
to  conceive  on  what  ground  such  petitioners  had 
leave  to  withdraw.  These  things  are  only  valuable 
as  indicating  that  public  attention  is  still  alive. 

In  Richmond,  Va.,  recently,  a  charge  of  stealing 
was  sustained  against  a  woman,  who  was  afterwards 
acquitted,  by  appeal,  on  the  ground  that  no  married 
woman  could  own  her  own  clothing,  and  the  conse- 
quent flaw  in  the  indictment.  In  consequence,  a  bill 
to  secure  the  rights  of  property  to  a  married  woman, 
as  if  she  were  a  feme  sole,  has  been  offered  in  the 
House,  to  the  horror  of  members  who  gravely  assert 
that  there  can  be  no  marriages,  if  a  man  does  not 
own  his  wife's  wardrobe ! 

In  Missouri,  the  new  Constitution  confers  on  wo- 
men the  right  to  make  a  will;  and  the  Legislature  is 
considering  the  subject  of  introducing  women  to  the 
State  University. 

In  England,  a  curious  decision  has  recently  been 
made,  in  the  case  of  a  clergyman,  of  the  Church  of 
England,  who  left  his  children  to  the  guardianship 
of  his  wife,  without  expressing  any  opinion  as  to  their 
religious  education.  Joint  guardian  with  the  wife 
was  a  brother  clergyman,  who  brings  action  to  have  it 
decided  by  the  Court  where  the  children  shall  attend 
church.  The  mother,  and  a  son  of  thirteen,  desire  to 
attend  a  dissenting  chapel;  but  Sir  J.  Stuart,  Vice- 
Chancellor,  decided  that  the  father's  religious  faith 
must  decide  the  matter  for  the  children!  Such  ab- 
surdity will  do  more  than  any  argument  to  secure  the 


AN    APPENDIX.  471 

future  freedom  of  woman.  The  family  history  of 
Madame  de  Bedout,  recently  dead  at  Paris,  furnishes, 
also,  a  remarkable  illustration  of  the  absurdity  of  the 
old  laws. 

The  will  of  Francis  Jackson,  of  Boston,  has  been  re- 
cently brought  before  our  courts  to  obtain  instructions 
as  to  its  construction.  Mr.  Jackson's  bequest  for  the 
purpose  of  creating  an  antislavery  sentiment  has  been 
sustained;  but  the  decision  reads,  February,  1867: — 

"The  gift  in  the  sixth  article,  to  create  a  trust,  unrestricted 
in  point  of  time,  to  secure  the  passage  of  laws  granting  to 
women  different  rights  from  those  belonging  to  them  under 
the  existing  Constitution  and  laws,  does  not  constitute  a  legal 
charity,  and  is  therefore  void,  and  is  remitted  to  the  testator's 
heirs-at-law." 

The  gift  in  question  was  intended  to  aid  the  publi- 
cation of  such  books  as  the  reader  now  holds  in  his 
hand. 

A  very  important  convention  came  together  at 
Leipsic,  in  September,  1865.  One  hundred  and  fifty 
women  assembled,  pledged  to  assert  the  right  to 
labor,  and  to  bridge  the  gulf  between  the  compensa- 
tions of  the  two  sexes.  Madame  Louise  Otto  Peters 
opened  the  conference  in  an  able  speech.  She  stated 
that  there  were  five  millions  of  women  in  Germany, 
who  could  each  earn,  if  allowed,  three  thalers  a  week. 
A  thousand  women  might  find  employment  as  chem- 
ists, on  salaries  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thalers  a  year, 
exclusive  of  board  and  lodging.  Another  thousand 
might  be  employed  as  boot-closers.    The   foundation 


472  TEN  years: 

of  industrial  and  commercial  schools  was  urged.  The 
weak  point  of  the  speech,  as  reported,  appeared  to  be, 
that  it  took  no  cognizance  of  the  fact,  that  an  influx 
of  five  millions  of  laborers  must  necessarily  lower  the 
current  rate  of  wages  she  proposed.  I  mention  this 
convention  in  a  legal  connection,  believing  that  it  was 
intended  to  remove  some  local  legal  barriers. 

A  petition  from  sixty  women  of  Potter  County, 
Penn.,  has  just  been  presented  to  the  Legislature  of 
that  State,  praying  for  the  passage  of  an  act  to  enable 
widows,  on  the  death  of  a  husband,  to  control  the 
property  acquired  by  joint  labor,  in  the  same  manner 
as  the  husband  does  on  the  death  of  the  wife. 

When  Freeman  Clarke  was  Comptroller  of  the 
United-States  Currency,  he  decided  that  a  woman, 
not  being  a  citizen,  could  not  be  a  bank  director.  I 
consider  this  logical  and  satisfactory.  I  wish  more 
decisions  of  this  kind  could  be  made.  If  the  position 
that  woman  is  not  a  citizen  were  pushed  to  its  ex- 
treme, it  would  become  untenable,  her  property  could 
not  be  taxed,  and  the  necessary  remedy  would  be 
applied.  One  bank  remonstrated  against  the  comp- 
troller's decision,  desiring  to  retain  the  services  of 
women  ''hitherto  satisfactory."  I  see,  by  a  Wash- 
ington paper,  that  another  national  bank  desires  leave 
to  diminish  the  number  of  its  directors;  so  many  of 
its  shares  being  held  by  women,  that  nine  men  could 
not  be  found  to  fill  the  office. 

Now,  let  some  bright  women  buy  up,  through  a 
broker,  all  the  shares  of  such  a  bank,  elect  their  own 


AN    APPENDIX.  473 

president  and  directors,  and  see  what  the  Government 
can  do.  The  absurdity  of  such  a  position,  practically, 
is  evident  to  all  who  know  how  business  is  done  in 
our  country  towns. 

SUFFRAGE. 

Dr.  Hunt  and  a  few  other  women  have  continued 
their  annual  protests,  without  intermission.  In  some- 
what the  same  way  have  petitions  recently  been  sent 
to  Congress  in  behalf  of  universal  suffrage.  We  had 
no  expectation  that  any  favorable  reception  would 
await  such  petitions;  but  it  was  a  duty  to  put  them 
on  record,  if  we  could  do  it  without  perplexing  public 
business.  What  fate  they  met  in  Congress,  you  have 
so  recently  heard,  that  I  have  no  occasion  to  record  it. 
Minnesota,  New  York,  and  other  States,  have  peti- 
tioned their  Legislatures  to  the  same  effect. 

On  the  7th  of  February,  1867,  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives in  Kansas  decided,  in  concurrence  with  the 
Senate,  to  amend  a  resolution  for  the  amendment  of 
the  Constitution,  by  striking  out  the  words  ''white" 
and  ''male",  and  making  intelligence  the  basis  of 
suffrage  after  1870.  This  action  has  been  since  re- 
scinded in  some  way,  only  the  word  "white"  being 
stricken  out.  In  Congress,  Mr.  Noel,  of  Missouri, 
offered  a  series  of  resolutions  in  favor  of  extending 
suffrage  to  women,  and  authorizing  the  calling  of  a 
convention  to  amend  the  Constitution  in  the  State  of 
Missouri.  The  acting  Vice-President,  the  Speaker 
of  the  Senate,  in  recording  his  protest  against  the 


474  TEN  years: 

Suffrage  Bill  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  said,  ''Make 
it  intelligent  suffrage,  and  I  will  not  only  vote  for  that, 
but  for  women  also." 

At  the  recent  election  of  officers  for  the  Philadel- 
phia Mercantile  Library,  the  female  stockholders  were 
admitted  to  the  ballot. 

The  ''New- York  Express"  says: — 

"The  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise  for  women  was  practi- 
<;ally  illustrated  in  the  election  of  officers  for  the  Mercantile 
Library,  Philadelphia,  on  Tuesday.  A  poll  was  opened  for  the 
female  stockholders,  who,  to  the  number  of  a  hundred  and  fifty- 
six,  cast  their  votes.  Both  sexes  voted  together;  and  the  proceed- 
ings were  conducted  with  the  utmost  propriety,  there  being  no 
confusion  or  disorder,  as  is  too  often  the  case  where  men  vote 
alone.  The  ladies  walked  up,  and  deposited  their  ballots  with 
as  much  sang  froid  as  if  they  were  accustomed  to  the  privilege. 
As  illustrating  how  the  thing  might  be  done,  this  voting  at  the 
library  election  should  be  noted." 

Some  doubts  having  been  expressed  as  to  the  fact 
of  women  having  voted  in  New  Jersey,  first  published 
by  me,  on  information  given  by  Thomas  Garratt,  in 
my  lectures  upon  Law,  I  append  here  a  history  of 
the  Constitution  of  New  Jersey  in  that  regard,  which 
has  been  gathered  by  Lucy  Stone  and  Henry  Black- 
well,  as  well  as  an  account  of  my  own  recent  inter- 
view with  a  member  of  the  House  of  1807,  which 
finally  repealed  the  obnoxious  clause. 

During  the  recent  important  discussion  in  the  Sen- 
ate upon  the  proposition  to  extend  the  ballot  to  the 
women  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  New  Jersey  was 


AN    APPENDIX.  475 

alluded  to  as  a  precedent.  The  precedent  being 
disputed,  the  following  statement  was  published  in 
the  ''Newark  Daily  Advertiser:" — 

"In  1709  a  provincial  law  confined  the  privilege  of  voting  to 
'male  freeholders  having  one  hundred  acres  of  land  in  their  own 
right,  or  fifty  pounds  current  money  of  the  province  in  real  and 
personal  estate;'  and,  during  the  whole  of  the  colonial  period, 
these  qualifications  continued  unchanged. 

"But  on  the  2d  of  July,  1776  (two  days  before  the  Declaration 
of  Independence),  the  Provincial  Congress  of  New  Jersey,  at 
Burlington,  adopted  a  Constitution,  which  remained  in  force  until 
1844,  of  which  sect.  4  is  as  follows:  'Qualifications  of  Electors  for 
Members  of  Legislatures.  All  inhabitants  of  this  colony,  of  full 
age,  who  are  worth  fifty  pounds  proclamation-money,  clear  estate 
in  the  same,  and  have  resided  within  the  county  in  which  they 
claim  a  vote  for  twelve  months  inmiediately  preceding  the  elec- 
tion, shall  be  entitled  to  vote  for  representatives  in  Council  and 
Assembly,  and  also  for  all  other  public  officers  that  shall  be  elected 
by  the  people  of  the  coimty  at  large. ' 

"Sect.  7  provides  that  the  Council  and  Assembly  jointly  shall 
elect  some  fit  person  within  the  colony  to  be  Governor.  This 
Constitution  remained  in  force  until  1844. 

"Thus,  by  a  dehberate  change  of  the  terms  'male  freeholder' 
to  '  all  inhabitants, '  suffrage  and  ability  to  hold  the  highest  office 
in  the  State  were  conferred  both  on  women  and  negroes. 

"In  1790,  a  committee  of  the  Legislature  reported  a  bill  regu- 
lating elections,  in  which  the  words  ^he  or  she'  are  applied  to 
voters;  thus  giving  legislative  indorsement  to  the  alleged  meaning 
of  the  Constitution. 

"In  1797  the  Legislature  passed  an  act  to  regulate  elections, 
containing  the  following  provisions: — 


476  TEN  years: 

"Sect.  9.  'Every  voter  shall  openly,  and  in  full  view,  deliver 
his  or  her  ballot,  which  shall  be  a  single  written  ticket,  containing 
the  names  of  the  person  or  persons  for  whom  he  or  she  votes,'  &c. 

''Sect.  11.  'All  free  inhabitants  of  full  age,  who  are  worth  fifty 
pounds  proclamation-money,  and  have  resided  within  the  coimty 
in  which  they  claim  a  vote  for  twelve  months  immediately  preceding 
the  election,  shall  be  entitled  to  vote  for  all  public  officers  which 
shall  be  elected  by  virtue  of  this  act;  and  no  person  shall  be  en- 
titled to  vote  in  any  other  township  or  precinct  than  that  in 
which  he  or  she  doth  actually  reside  at  the  time  of  the  election.' 

"Mr.  William  A.  Whitehead,  of  Newark,  in  a  paper  upon  this 
subject,  read  by  him  in  1858  before  the  New-Jersey  Historical 
Society,  states  that,  in  this  same  year  (1797),  women  voted,  at  an 
election  in  Elizabethtown,  for  members  of  the  Legislature.  'The 
candidates  between  whom  the  greatest  rivalry  existed  were  John 
Condit  and  WiUiam  Crane,  the  heads  of  what  were  known,  a 
year  or  two  later,  as  the  "Federal  RepubUcan"  and  "Federal 
Aristocratic"  parties,  the  former  the  candidate  of  Newark  and 
the  northern  portions  of  the  county,  the  latter  that  of  Ehzabeth- 
town  and  the  adjoining  country,  for  Council.  Under  the  impres- 
sion that  the  candidates  would  poll  nearly  the  same  number  of 
votes,  the  Ehzabethtown  leaders  thought,  that,  by  a  bold  coup 
d'etai,  they  might  secure  the  success  of  Mr.  Crane.  At  a  late 
hour  of  the  day,  and,  as  I  have  been  informed,  just  before  the 
close  of  the  poll,  a  number  of  females  were  brought  up,  and,  under 
the  provisions  of  the  existing  laws,  allowed  to  vote.  But  the 
manoeuvre  was  unsuccessful;  the  majority  for  Mr.  Condit  in  the 
county  being  ninety-three,  notwithstanding.' 

"The  'Newark  Sentinel,'  about  the  same  time,  states  that  'no 
less  than  seventy-five  women  were  polled  at  the  late  election  in  a 
neighboring  borough.'  In  the  presidential  election  of  1800,  be- 
tween   Adams    and     Jefferson,    'females   voted    very    generally 


AN    APPENDIX.  477 

throughout  the  State;  and  such  continued  to  be  the  case  until 
the  passage  of  the  act  (1807)  excluding  them  from  the  polls.  At 
first,  the  law  had  been  so  construed  as  to  admit  single  women  only : 
but,  as  the  practice  extended,  the  construction  of  the  privilege 
became  broader,  and  was  made  to  include  females  eighteen  years 
old,  married  or  single,  and  even  women  of  color;  at  a  contested 
election  in  Hunterdon  County  in  1802,  the  votes  of  two  or  three 
such  actually  electing  a  member  of  the  Legislature. 

"That  women  voted  at  a  very  early  period,  we  are  informed  by 
the  venerable  Mr.  Cyrus  Jones,  of  East  Orange,  who  was  born  in 
1770,  and  is  now  ninety-seven  years  old.  He  says  that  'old 
maids,  widows,  and  unmarried  women  very  frequently  voted, 
but  married  women  very  seldom;'  that  'the  right  was  recognized, 
and  very  little  said  or  thought  about  it  in  any  way.' 

"In  the  spring  of  1807,  a  special  election  was  held  in  Essex 
County,  to  decide  upon  the  location  of  a  court-house  and  jail; 
Newark  and  its  vicinity  struggling  to  retain  the  coimty  build- 
ings, ElizabethtowTi  and  its  neighborhood  striving  to  remove 
them  to  'Day's  Hill.' 

"The  question  excited  intense  interest,  as  the  value  of  every 
man's  property  was  thought  to  be  involved.  Not  only  was  every 
legal  voter,  man  or  woman,  white  or  black,  brought  out;  but,  on 
both  sides,  gross  frauds  were  practiced.  The  property  qualifica- 
tion was  generally  disregarded;  aliens,  and  boys  and  girls  not  of 
full  age,  participated;  and  many  of  both  sexes  'voted  early,  and 
voted  often.'  In  Aquackanonk  Township,  thought  to  contain 
about  three  hundred  legal  voters,  over  eighteen  himdred  votes 
were  polled,  all  but  seven  in  the  interest  of  Newark. 

"It  does  not  appear  that  either  women  or  negroes  were  more 
especially  impUcated  in  these  frauds  than  the  white  men.  But 
the  affair  caused  great  scandal,  and  they  seem  to  have  been  made 
the  scapegoats. 


478  TEN  years: 

"When  the  Legislature  assembled,  they  set  aside  the  elec- 
tion as  fraudulent;  yet  Newark  retained  the  buildings.  Then 
they  passed  an  act  (Nov.  15,  1807),  restricting  the  suffrage  to 
white  male  adult  citizens  twenty-one  years  of  age,  residents  in 
the  county  for  the  twelve  months  preceding,  and  worth  fifty 
pounds  proclamation-money.  But  they  went  on,  and  provided 
that  all  such  whose  names  appeared  on  the  last  duplicate  of 
State  or  county  taxes  should  be  considered  worth  fifty  pounds; 
thus  virtually  abolishing  the  property  quahfication. 

"In  1820,  the  same  provisions  were  repeated,  and  maintained 
until  1844,  when  the  present  State  Constitution  was  substituted. 

"Thus  it  appears,  that,  from  1776  to  1807, — a  period  of  thirty- 
one  years, — the  right  of  women  and  negi'oes  to  vote  was  ad- 
mitted and  exercised;  then  from  1807  to  1844 — by  an  arbitrary 
act  of  the  Legislature,  which  does  not  seem  to  have  been  ever 
contested — the  constitutional  right  was  suspended,  and  both  women 
and  negroes  excluded  from  the  polls  for  thirty-seven  years  more. 
The  extension  of  suffrage,  in  the  State  Constitution  of  1776.  to 
'all  inhabitants'  possessing  the  prescribed  qualifications,  was 
doubtless  due  to  the  Quaker  influence,  then  strong  in  West  Jersey, 
and  then,  as  now,  in  favor  of  the  equal  rights  of  women. 

"Since  1844,  imder  the  present  Constitution,  suffrage  is  con- 
ferred upon  '  every  white  male  citizen  of  the  United  States,  of  the 
age  of  twenty-one  years,  who  shall  have  been  a  resident  of  this 
State  one  year,  and  of  the  county  in  which  he  claims  a  vote 
five  months  next  before  the  election,'  excepting  paupers,  idiots, 
insane  persons,  and  criminals. 

"This  Constitution  is  subject  to  amendment  by  a  majority 
of  both  Houses  of  two  successive  Legislatures,  when  such  amend- 
ment is  afterward  ratified  by  the  people  at  a  special  election. 

"Lucy  Stone. 
H.  B.  Blackwell." 


AN    APPENDIX.  479" 

In  a  recent  visit  to  Perth  Amboy,  a  friend  directed 
my  attention  to  a  figure  in  a  broad-brimmed  hat,  very 
much  like  that  which  used  to  adorn  the  cover  of 
Poor  Richard's  Almanac.  '^That  man  is  ninety-five 
years  old,"  said  he.  "He  spent  his  youth  in  prevent- 
ing the  New  Jersey  people  from  running  their  slaves 
off  South.  A  prospective  emancipation  act  had  been 
passed,  which  made  the  young  negroes  a  poor  invest- 
ment; but  our  friend  Parker,  there,  looked  after  them 
without  any  fee.  We  think  he  looks  like  Benjamin 
Franklin."  The  next  day,  I  took  a  drive  with  Mr. 
Parker  himself,  and  I  found  he  possessed  another 
claim  on  my  interest.  The  original  Constitution  of 
New  Jersey,  adopted  in  1776,  left  women  free  to  vote, 
by  leaving  out  the  word  ''male."  In  1790,  when  the 
Constitution  was  revised,  a  Quaker  member,  ''Friend 
Hooper,"  rose  to  say  that  among  his  people  the  women 
were  allowed  their  natural  share  of  influence.  At  his 
instance,  the  matter  was  made  clearer  by  the  insertion 
of  the  words  "he  or  she."  In  1807,  after  an  election 
contested  with  singular  virulence,  these  words  were 
expunged,  and  the  word  "male"  inserted.  I  had 
never  expected  to  see  a  member  of  the  Legislature 
who  repealed  this  phrase;  but  Friend  Parker  was 
there,  and  helped  do  it.  He  assured  me  that  the 
women  were  not  at  that  time  anxious  to  retain  the 
privilege;  but  that,  if  they  had  been,  the  Legislature 
was  so  irate,  that  the  change  would  have  taken  place. 
Lads,  both  white  and  colored,  and  under  age,  had 
dressed  in  women's  clothes,  to  swell  the  ballot,  which 


480  TEN  years: 

was  more  than  double  what  it  should  have  been;  the 
irritating  question  being  the  possible  removal  of 
the  county  buildings. 

A  few  days  since,  I  cut  from  the  paper  the  follow- 
ing paragraph: — 

"In    the    Kentucky   House    of  Representatives,    on    Friday 

last,  an  address  was  received  by  the  Speaker,  from  Mrs. , 

of  New  York,  and  read  by  the  Clerk,  asking  the  Legislature 
of  the  Southern  States  to  grant  suffrage  to  white  women  in 
the  South,  so  as  to  give  the  Democratic  party  the  advantage 
over  the  negro  votes,  if  Congress  passes  a  general  negro- 
suffrage  law.     By  following  out  this  plan,   Mrs.  thinks 

the  South  can  govern  the  country,  as  in  the  days  of  Jef- 
ferson." 

I  suppress  the  name,  which  was  printed  in  full,  in 
this  paragraph,  because  it  is  the  name  of  a  woman  I 
respect;  and  I  earnestly  hope  the  whole  charge  is  false. 
If  women  seek  to  advance  their  own  cause  by  mean 
and  meretricious  tricks, — such  as  those  which  have 
dishonored  the  policy  of  men, — may  God  for  ever 
disappoint  their  hope!  I  would  rather  be  defeated 
with  the  friends  of  liberty  than  crowned  with  its  foes. 
It  is  because  I  believe  woman  strong  enough  to  with- 
stand the  low  and  loose  and  degrading  temptations 
of  public  life  that  I  would  lead  her  towards  it.  If 
she  cannot  enter  it  as  an  inspiration,  may  she  be  for- 
ever shut  out! 

Mrs.  Stanton  and  Miss  Anthony,  assisted  by  Lucy 
Stone  and  Antoinette  Blackwell,  have  been  busy  in 
agitating  all  legal  questions,  and  especially  the  right 


AN    APPENDIX.  481 

of  suffrage,  ever  since  the  formation  of  the  Equal- 
Rights  Association  in  New  York,  in  May,  1866. 
Wherever  there  is  any  prospect  of  a  convention  to 
change  a  state  Constitution,  it  would  seem  wise 
to  agitate  the  matter;  but  here,  in  Massachusetts, 
almost  every  thing  has  been  done  that  should  be 
to  protect  women,  except  to  give  them  the  right  of 
suffrage.  That  question  we  are  too  wise  to  agitate, 
until  the  country  recovers  somewhat  from  the  anx- 
ieties and  perplexities  of  the  war.  We  have  no 
desire  to  win  from  an  unjust  judge,  for  our  impor- 
tunity's sake,  a  right  which  could  never  be  useful, 
unless  it  were  accorded  with  the  hearty  sympathy  of 
the  best  part  of  the  community.  On  March  16,  1867, 
a  motion  was  made  in  the  Massachusetts  House  to 
instruct  the  Judiciary  Committee  to  report  an  amend- 
ment to  the  State  Constitution,  granting  the  right  of 
suffrage  to  women.  The  yeas  and  nays  were  taken, 
and  the  motion  was  lost:  yeas  44,  nays  97. 

In  New  York,  Illinois,  and  Michigan,  the  question 
is  to  be  brought  before  the  Constitutional  Convene 
tion.  Wisconsin  is  our  banner  State,  both  branches 
of  her  government  having  concurred,  April  4,  1867, 
in  a  resolution  to  submit  it  to  the  people.  In  New 
York,  last  year,  Mrs.  Stanton  proposed  herself  as 
a  candidate  for  Congress,  and  received,  I  think,  thirty 
votes.  It  was  so  well  understood  that  her  election 
was  impossible,  that  her  card  excited  neither  ridi- 
cule nor  discussion.  No  one  cared  to  turn  aside 
from  more  pressing  interests  to  consider  it.     It  was 

35 


482  TEN  years: 

therefore  a  waste  of  strength.  I  saw,  with  pain,  that 
some  women  did  not  shrink  from  employing  last  yeai^ 
a  politician's  trick,  and  sent  to  Democratic  members 
of  the  Senate  and  House  the  petitions  for  the  right 
of  suffrage  for  women,  with  which  they  knew  them  to 
possess  no  sympathy.  Had  these  petitions  been  sent 
to  Republican  members  of  either  House,  they  might 
have  been  overlooked  in  the  press  of  graver  anxieties. 
Mischievously  sent  to  men  like  Cowan,  women  must 
have  known  that  the  petition  would  be  produced,  if  it 
were  only  to  annoy  and  perplex  our  honest  friends  of 
the  Republican  party.  In  what  would  our  influence 
upon  politics  be  better  than  that  of  men,  if  we  re- 
sort to  such  measures?  During  the  past  year,  I  drew 
up,  and  forwarded  to  the  Hon.  Charles  Sumner,  a 
petition  for  the  right  of  suffrage,  and  afterwards  sus- 
tained it  by  two  or  three  letters.  I  think  Mr.  Sumner 
never  brought  it  forward;  but  I  gladly  defer  to  his 
judgment  as  to  that.  It  was  my  duty  to  keep  the 
subject  in  mind,  and  see  that  we  did  not  appear,  even 
in  the  tumult  left  by  civil  war,  to  lose  sight  of  our 
claim.  I  am  glad  to  offer  public  thanks  to  the  Hon. 
George  Thompson,  who,  in  the  meeting  of  the  Equal- 
Rights  Association,  held  in  Philadelphia  on  Jan.  17, 
1867,  defeated  a  resolution  of  thanks  to  Mr.  Cowan, 
and  condemnation  to  Mr.  Sumner,  on  precisely 
these  grounds.  ''To  thank  men  like  Cowan,  who 
did  not  desire  to  enfranchise  woman  any  more  than 
the  negro,  was  to  stultify  ourselves,"  he  said.  ''To 
condemn  Sumner,  because  he  did  not  think  this  the 


AN   APPENDIX.  483 

time  to  push  the  claims  of  woman,  was  not  honor- 
able to  the  long-tried  friend  of  human  progress." 

Abroad,  such  things  look  better.  The  clean  hand§ 
of  John  Stuart  Mill — which  no  noble  woman  need 
fear*  to  touch — have  presented  to  Parliament  the 
petition  of  fifteen  hundred  women  for  the  right  of 
franchise.  This  petition  is  so  moderate  and  sensible, 
that  it  deserves  to  be  preserved. 

"The  humble  petition  of  the  undersigned  showeth, — 

"That  it  having  been  expressly  laid  down  by  high  authori- 
ties, that  the  possession  of  property,  in  this  country,  carries 
with  it  the  right  to  vote  in  the  election  of  representatives  in 
Parliament,  it  is  an  evident  anomaly,  that  some  holders  of 
property  are  allowed  to  use  this  right,  while  others,  forming 
no  less  a  constituent  part  of  the  nation,  and  equally  qualified 
by  law  to  hold  property,  are  not  able  to  exercise  this  privilege; 
that  the  participation  of  women  in  the  government  is  consistent 
with  the  principles  of  the  British  Constitution,  inasmuch  as 
women  in  these  islands  have  always  been  held  capable  of  sover- 
eignty, and  women  are  eligible  for  various  public  offices. 

"Your  petitioners,  therefore,  humbly  pray  your  honorable 
House  to  consider  the  expediency  of  providing  for  the  repre- 
sentation of  all  householders,  without  distinction  of  sex,  who 
possess  such  property  or  rental  qualification  as  your  honorable 
House  may  determine.     And  your  petitioners  will  ever  pray. 

"Mrs.  W.  B.  Carpenter,  56,  Regent's  Park  Road,  London,  N.W. 
C.  M.  Clarkson,  Hatfield  Road,  Wakefield. 
Frances  Power  Cobbe,  26,  Hereford  Square,  London,  S.W. 
Elizabeth  Garrett,  L.S.A.,  20,  Upper  Berkeley  Street,  Lon- 
don, W. 
Mary  Ann  Gaskell,  Plymouth  Grove,  Manchester. 
Matilda  M.  Hayes,  Great  Malvern. 
Mary  Howitt,  West  Hill  Lodge,  Highgate,  N. 
M.  S.  Kinglake,  50,  Upper  Brunswick  Place,  Brighton. 
IsA  Craig  Knox,  14,  Clyde  Terrace,  New  Cross,  S.E. 


484  TEN  years: 

S.  J.  Lewin,  Birkenhead. 
Harriet  Lupton,  St.  Asaph. 

Elizabeth  Mallison,  Camp  Cottage,  Wimbledon. 
•  Harriet  Martineau,  The  Knoll,  Ambleside. 
Jane  Martineau,  21,  Tariton  Street,  London,  W.C. 
Jane  Moxon,  1,  Cundall's  Yard,  Leeds. 
Mrs.  Elizabeth  Pease  Nichol,  Huntly  Lodge,  Edinburgh. 
Bessie  R.  Parkes,  15,  Wimpole  Street,  London,  W. 
Elizabeth  Proctor,  Polam  Hall,  Darlington. 
C.  Sturch,  Cumberland  Terrace,  Regent's  Park,  London,  N.  W. 
Mrs.  Thomas  Taylor,  Aston  House,  Oxfordshire. 
Sarah  Unwin,  Hale  Lodge,  Edgeware,  Middlesex. 
Anna   Mary  Howitt  Watts,   24,   Grove  Terrace,  Highgate 
Road." 

I  append  to  the  above  petition  a  few  of  the  fifteen 
hundred  names,  which  will  serve  to  give  it  identity, 
and  interest  in  this  country.  We  miss,  among  the 
names,  many  names  of  the  beloved  dead;  and  many 
would  doubtless  be  there  that  we  know,  could  it  be 
signed  by  any  save  property-holders. 

A  very  powerful  influence  was  brought  to  sustain 
this  petition  in  Parliament;  and  among  its  advocates 
were  James  Martineau,  Herbert  Spencer,  Professor 
Huxley,  and  Goldwin  Smith.  Mr.  Mill  seems  to 
have  presented  a  second  petition,  headed  by  Lady 
Goldschmid,  and  signed  by  three  thousand  persons; 
and  another  was  offered,  at  the  same  time,  by  Mr. 
Russell  Gurney.  On  April  11,  1867,  the  subject  of 
female  suffrage  was  first  discussed  in  the  House 
of  Commons  without  being  greeted  with  a  laugh. 
A  petition  presented  by  Mr.  Duncan  Maclaren,  from 
Edinburgh,  was  signed  by  eight  university  professors, 
six  doctors  of  law,  eighteen  clergymen,  eight  barris- 


AN    APPENDIX.  485 

ters,  ten  physicians,  ten  officers,  and  two  thousand 
other  persons.  Two  women  are  said  to  have  been 
lately  elected  parish  overseers:  Mrs.  Slocomb  for 
Brittadon,  and  Mrs.  Craig  for  Bratton  Fleming.  The 
step-daughter  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  Miss  Helen  Tay- 
lor, contributed  to  the  January  number  of  the  "West- 
minster" an  article  which  worthily  sustained  the  far 
more  comprehensive  statement  of  her  mother  in  1851. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  a  paper,  however, 
that  would  appeal  more  forcibly  to  the  English  people. 
There  is  in  England  a  Woman-Suffrage  Association, 
which  proposes  to  circulate  that  article  as  a  tract. 
Mrs.  P.  A.  Taylor  and  Frances  Power  Cobbe  are 
among  its  most  active  members.  Mrs.  Bodichon  has 
recently  brought  out  two  pamphlets  on  this  subject. 
They  contain  one  instance,  which  is  not  familiar,  of 
the  inconvenience  of  withholding  the  franchise  from 
English  women.  Owners  of  estates  seek  to  further 
their  own  interest  through  the  voting  power  of  their 
tenantry,  and  frequently  eject  women  from  farms,  to 
replace  them  by  men  who  have  a  freehold.  On  one 
Suffolk  farm,  seven  women  have  been  ejected.  Among 
the  instances  which  Mrs.  Bodichon  adduces  to  show 
the  need  of  female  votes  are  the  neglect  of  female 
education;  the  refusal  of  leases,  or  the  ejection  of  old 
tenants;  the  want  of  proper  public  spirit,  which  wo- 
men might  be  expected  to  infuse  into  affairs;  and  the 
condition  of  workhouses,  and  charitable  appropria- 
tions in  general.  In  Austria,  information  furnished 
to  one  of  Mrs.  Bodichon's  papers  seems  to  show  that 


486  TEN  years: 

the  women  have  the  same  electoral  rights  as  men, 
only  that  in  a  few  cases  they  are  compelled  to  vote 
by  proxy.  They  vote  as  nobles,  in  their  corporate 
capacity  as  nuns,  and  as  tax-payers  or  merchants; 
but  I  need  not  say  that  there  is  much  uncertainty  in 
the  Austrian  administration  of  such  a  law. 

In  connection  with  the  name  of  Fredrika  Bremer, 
I  have  mentioned  the  great  changes  in  Swedish  law, 
mainly  due  to  her  influence.  An  indirect  right  of 
suffrage  was  further  granted  to  women  in  1862;  but 
in  December,  1865,  the  Reform  Bill  gave  the  election 
of  members  of  the  Upper  Chamber  to  municipal  and 
county  bodies.  In  the  election  of  these  bodies,  women 
take  part.  They  must  be  unmarried  or  widows,  be 
twenty-five  years  old,  and  have  more  than  four  hun- 
dred rixdollars  per  annum. 

Article  15  of  the  Italian  electoral  law  provides  ''that 
the  taxation  paid  by  a  widow,  or  by  a  wife  separated 
from  her  husband,  shall  give  a  vote  to  whichever  of 
her  children  or  near  relatives  she  may  select. " 

A  curious  petition  has  been  lately  presented  to  the 
Hungarian  Diet.  It  is  signed  by  a  number  of  wid- 
ows and  other  women  who  are  landed  proprietors, 
and  asks  for  them  the  same  equality  of  political  rights 
with  the  male  inhabitants  of  the  country,  as  they  pos- 
sessed in  1848.  These  ladies  represent  that  they  have 
much  more  difficulty  in  bringing  up  their  children, 
and  attending  to  the  estates,  than  men;  that  they 
have  to  bear  the  same  State  burdens;  that  they  are 
not  allowed  to  take  part  in  the  communal  elections; 


AN    APPENDIX.  487 

and  that,  although  many  of  them  possess  much  more 
ground  than  the  male  electors,  they  have  no  political 
rights. 

In  1848,  these  women  were,  for  the  first  time, 
excluded  from  the  franchise. 

PROGRESS. 

The  real  gain  of  a  reform,  starting  from  the  heart 
of  the  family,  must  necessarily  be  very  slow.  I  re- 
member, that  some  years  ago,  when  I  printed  my 
book  on  Labor,  one  of  my  kindest  critics  congratulated 
the  public,  that,  of  my  nine  lectures,  I  had  published 
only  these.  He  thought  it  was  useless  to  contend  for 
more  book-learning  for  women,  and  the  subject  of 
civil  rights  still  disgusted  his  sensitive  ear.  The  com- 
mon sense  of  the  book  on  Labor  ought  to  have  shown 
him  how  I  should  treat  the  subject  of  education.  He 
could  not  understand  how  the  woman  who  gets  an 
education  which  does  not  make  her  a  '*  bread-winner," 
is  essentially  defrauded,  nor  how  a,  woman,  well  paid 
for  her  labor,  is  essentially  wronged,  when  she  is 
denied  the  privilege  of  protecting  it  by  her  vote. 
There  is,  however,  a  surely  growing  sense  of  this, 
shown  in  the  substantial  advance  of  her  civil  rights. 

1.  In  the  early  part  of  1865,  the  people  of  Vic- 
toria, in  Australia,  assembled  to  elect  a  member  of 
Parliament,  were  surprised  to  find  the  whole  female 
population  voting.  Some  quick-sighted  woman  had 
discovered  that  the  letter  of  the  new  law  permitted 
it;  and  their  votes  were  accepted,  and  wisely  given. 


488  TEN  years: 

The  ''London  Times,"  in  the  month  of  May,  says, 
that,  in  a  country  like  Australia,  it  can  easily  believe 
that  such  an  extension  of  the  franchise  will  be  a 
marked  improvement,  and  thinks  that  the  precedent 
will  stand! 

2.  The  government  of  Moravia  has  also,  within  the 
past  year,  granted  the  municipal  franchise  to  widows 
who  pay  taxes. 

3.  In  January,  1864,  the  Court  of  Queen's  Bench 
in  Dublin,  Ireland,  restored  to  woman  the  old  right 
of  voting  for  town  commissioners.  The  justice  (Fitz- 
gerald) desired  to  state  that  ladies  were  entitled  to 
sit  as  town  commissioners  as  well  as  to  vote  for 
them;  and  the  chief-justice  took  pains  to  make  it 
clear  that  there  was  nothing  in  either  duty  repug- 
nant to  womanly  habits. 

4.  The  inhabitants  of  Ain  (or  Aisne),  in  France, 
lately  chose  nine  women  into  their  municipal  council. 

5.  At  Bergeres,  the  whole  council  consisted  of  wo- 
men; and  the  mayor,  not  being  prepared  for  such 
good  fortune,  resigned  his  office. 

6.  Our  cause  has  found  able  advocates  in  John  Stu- 
art Mill,  the  ''New  York  Evening  Post,"  and  Theo- 
dore Tilton.  If  I  were  asked,  whether,  in  connection 
with  this  gain,  we  have  lost  any  ground,  I  should 
reply  that  we  have  decidedly  lost  it  in  connection 
with  the  daily  press.  I  do  not  know  any  newspaper, 
if  I  except  the  "Boston  Commonwealth,"  which  will 
print  a  letter  touching  civil  rights,  from  any  woman, 
precisely  as  it  is  written.     I   think  what   we  need 


AN    APPENDIX.  489" 

most  is  to  purchase  the  right  to  a  daily  use  of  half  a 
column  of  the  ''New  York  Tribune." 

RECORD    AND    OBITUARIES. 

I  have  been  accustomed  to  connect  with  reports  of 
this  kind  some  honorable  mention  of  distinguished 
women  obscure  or  recently  dead.  I  cannot  do  this 
at  any  length,  after  a  pause  of  so  many  years;  but 
a  few  names  must  be  mentioned,  a  few  facts  re- 
corded. 

I  had  occasion,  some  years  ago,  to  commemorate 
the  services  of  Maria  Sybilla  Merian,  painter,  en- 
graver, hnguist,  and  traveller,  who  published,  at  Am- 
sterdam, two  volumes  of  engravings  of  insects  and 
sixty  magnificent  plates,  illustrating  the  metamor- 
phoses of  the  insects  of  Surinam.  I  did  not,  at  that 
time,  know  that  some  of  her  statements  had  been 
held  open  to  suspicion.  In  the  first  place,  she  as- 
serted, that  a  certain  fly,  the  Fulgoria  Lantanaria, 
emitted  so  much  light,  that  she  could  read  her  books 
by  its  aid;  still  further,  that  one  of  the  large  spiders, 
called  Mygale,  entered  the  nests  of  the  humming-bird 
in  Surinam,  sucked  its  eggs,  and  snared  the  birds. 
To  all  the  contention  which  arose  over  these  state- 
ments, Madame  Merian  could  oppose  only  her  word. 
Men  who  knew  that  her  statements  with  regard  to 
Europe  were  indisputable  decided  that  her  word 
could  not  be  taken  in  Asia.  A  very  common  folly; 
but  two  hundred  years  have  passed,  1866  arrives, 
and. her  justification  with  it.     An  English  traveller^ 


490  TEN  years: 

named  Bates,  has  recently  rescued  quite  large  finches 
from  the  Mygale,  and  poisoned  himself  with  its  sa- 
liva, in  preparing  them  for  his  cabinet. 

I  do  not  know  how  many  years  Madam  Baring, 
the  mother  of  the  great  banker,  has  been  dead. 
It  is  only  recently  that  I  have  heard,  that  to  her 
prudence,  activity,  and  business  habits,  the  family 
attribute  the  sure  foundation  of  their  fortunes.  Mat- 
thew Baring  came  to  Larkbeare,  near  Exeter,  from 
Bremen.  His  wife  superintended,  in  his  day,  the  long 
rows  of  ^'burlers,"  or  women  who  picked  over  the 
woollen  cloth  he  made.  Her  sons,  John  and  Fran- 
cis, sought  a  wider  field  for  the  fortune  their  father 
left,  but  did  not  forget  to  erect  a  monument  to  their 
mother's  industry. 

About  a  year  since,  Eliza  W.  Farnham  laid  down 
her  weary  head.  I  did  not  know  her,  nor  did  I  sym- 
pathize in  her  theories.  They  were  sustained  by  her 
imagination  rather  than  her  reason;  by  her  impulses 
rather  than  any  practical  judgment.  No  moral  supe- 
riority can  justly  be  conferred  on  either  sex  of  a  being 
possessed  of  intellect  and  conscience.  God  has  con- 
ferred no  such  superiority;  yet  I  gladly  name  Mrs. 
Farnham  here  as  a  woman  whose  life — a  bitter  dis- 
appointment to  herself — was  useful  to  all  women, 
and  whose  books,  published  since  her  death,  show  a 
marvellous  mental  range. 

During  the  last  year,  Madame  Charles  Lemonnier 
died  in  Paris.  She  devoted  her  life  to  the  profes- 
sional education  of  women.     For  six  years  she  found 


AN    APPENDIX.  '  491 

it  SO  difficult  to  raise  the  necessary  funds,  that  she 
had  to  content  herself  with  sending  her  pupils  to 
institutions  in  Germany.  In  1862  the  Society  for 
the  Professional  Instruction  of  Women  was  at  last 
constituted,  and  opened  a  school  in  the  Rue  de  Perle. 
Two  other  schools  have  since  been  opened, — one  in 
the  Rue  de  Val  Sainte  Catherine;  the  other,  in  the 
Rue  Roche.  The  morning  is  occupied  in  these  schools 
with  general  studies;  the  afternoon,  with  industrial 
drawing,  wood-engraving,  the  making-up  of  gar- 
ments, linen,  &c.  She  died  after  initiating  a  thor- 
oughly successful  work. 

In  July,  1865,  there  died  at  Corfu  a  Dr.  Barry, 
attached  to  the  medical  staff  of  the  British  army. 
He  was  remarkable  for  skill,  firmness,  decision,  and 
great  rapidity  in  difficult  operations.  He  had  entered 
the  army  in  1813,  and  had  served  in  all  quarters  of 
the  globe,  with  such  distinction  as  to  ensure  promo- 
tion without  interest.  He  was  clever  and  agreeable, 
but  excessively  plain,  weak  in  stature,  and  with  a 
squeaking  voice  which  provoked  ridicule.  He  had 
an  irritable  temper,  and  answered  some  jesting  on 
the  topic  by  calling  out  the  offender,  and  shooting 
him  through  the  lungs.  In  1840  he  was  made  medi- 
cal inspector,  and  transferred  from  the  Cape  to  Malta. 
He  went  from  Malta  to  Corfu;  and,  when  the  Eng- 
lish Government  ceded  the  Ionian  Islands  to  Greece, 
resigned  his  position  in  the  army,  and  remained  at 
Corfu.  There  he  died  last  summer,  forbidding,  with 
his  latest  breath,  any  interference  with  his  remains. 


492  '  TEN  years: 

The  women  who  attended  him  regarded  this  request 
with  the  shameless  indifference  now  so  common;  and 
unable  to  believe,  that  an  officer,  who  had  been  forty- 
five  years  in  the  British  service,  had  received  a  diplo- 
ma, fought  a  duel,  and  been  celebrated  as  a  brilliant 
operator,  was  not  only  a  woman,  but  at  some  period 
in  her  life  a  mother,  they  called  in  a  medical  commis- 
sion to  establish  these  facts.  A  sad,  sad,  picture  which 
those  of  us  who  inquire  into  the  fortunes  of  women 
can  readily  understand. 

Last  November  deprived  us  of  Mrs.  Gaskell  and 
Fredrika  Bremer,  of  whom  a  fuller  record  will  be 
found  in  the  body  of  this  work. 

In  Paris  recently  died  Mrs.  Severn  Newton.  She 
was  the  daughter  of  the  artist  Severn,  the  friend  of 
Keats,  who  is  now  British  Consul  at  Rome.  About 
five  years  since,  she  married  Charles  Newton,  Super- 
intendent of  Greek  Antiquities  at  the  British  Mu- 
seum. She  was  a  person  in  whom  power  and 
delicacy  were  singularly  blended.  Ary  Scheffer  was 
accustomed  to  hold  up  her  work  as  a  model  for  his 
pupils.  Her  renderings  of  classic  sculpture  were  so 
true  that  they  were  termed  translations;  and  she  had 
recently  devoted  herself  to  oil  painting  with  great 
success.  She  died  of  brain  fever  at  the  early  age 
of  thirty-three,  one  of  the  most  honored  of  female 
English  artists. 

The  common  sense  of  society  accepts  the  need  of 
education  for  women.  It  begs  that  they  may  be  per- 
mitted to  earn  their  bread;  but  let  society  once  grant 


AN    APPENDIX.  493 

the  suffrage  to  women,  and  she  will  take  care  of  her 
own  interests.  She  will  found  colleges,  distribute 
opportunities,  and  protect  vocations. 

Education  must,  in  time,  earn  independence  for 
most  women.  Independence,  taxed  and  made  a  citi- 
zen of,  will  insist,  in  the  course  of  years,  upon  its 
suffrage;  but  whoso  will  help  to  reverse  the  process, 
and  grant  suffrage,  so  that  woman  may  herself  indi- 
cate what  education  she  wishes  to  receive,  and  what 
labor  she  wishes  to-  perform,  will  speed  the  process 
by  scores  of  years. 

It  was  pleasant  to  see  four  hundred  young  women, 
of  the  highest  health,  the  best  breeding,  of  good  social 
standing,  and  abundant  means,  blossoming  like  so 
many  tulips,  at  Vassar, — we  must  add,  also,  of  good 
ability,  and  more  than  average  education;  for  only 
good  scholars  could  pass  the  rigid  examination  re- 
quired of  those  who  enter.  It  was  pleasant  to  see, 
that  between  the  ages  of  seventeen  and  twenty-two, 
when  society  offers  its  greatest  allurements,  four  hun- 
dred wealthy  girls  could  be  found,  ready  to  devote 
themselves  in  seclusion,  and  without  even  the  stimu- 
lus existing  at  Oberlin  or  Antioch,  to  higher  things. 
And  then,  if  the  want  of  public  sympathy  makes  it 
a  painful  work  to  be  always  pushing  the  interests  of 
women,  such  teachers  and  officers  as  one  finds  at 
Vassar  compensate  one  for  any  amount  of  struggle. 
Miss  Hannah  Lyman,  who  is  now  the  principal;  Miss 
Mitchell,  the  astronomer;  Dr.  Avery,  the  resident 
physician;  and  Miss  Powell,  the  professor  of  gym- 


494  ,  TEN  years: 

nasties, — it  is  only  necessary  to  name  to  Eastern 
«ars:  but,  besides  these  women,  Vassar  employs 
twenty  others,  in  whom  it  would  be  hard  to  find  a 
fault,  and  some  of  whom,  we  were  glad  to  see,  had 
taken  their  degree  at  Oberlin.  Going  westward  to 
Antioch,  it  was  pleasant  to  find  other  women  who  had 
taken  their  degrees,  and  were  now  teaching  Greek 
and  Latin.  One  of  the  graduates,  employed  as  a 
teacher  of  mathematics,  had  won  her  own  education 
in  the  college  by  teaching  one  year, — sometimes  in 
distant  district-schools, — and  studying  the  next.  At 
Oberlin,  the  picture  was  still  more  inspiring :  for  Ober- 
lin has,  I  suppose,  more  pupils  than  any  college  in  the 
land,  if  we  except  Michigan  University;  and  one-half 
of  them  are  girls  and  women.  The  practical  working 
of  this  college  is  beautiful  to  see.  It  has  been  fortu- 
nate in  the  magnificent  faith  communicated  to  it  by 
Dr.  Finney.  Most  of  the  women  who  were  its  early 
students,  and  stamped  its  character,  so  that  no  scandal 
dared  invade  its  borders,  are  now  the  wives  of  its 
professors,  and  many  of  them  are  still  engaged  in 
teaching.  Mrs.  Dascomb,  who  is  the  wife  of  the  pro- 
fessor of  chemistry,  has  been  with  the  college  from  the 
beginning:  she  is  as  fine  a  person  for  her  position,  as 
lady-principal,  as  Miss  Lyman;  yet  how  differently 
have  the  two  been  trained!  Mrs.  Dascomb,  by  isola- 
tion, persecution,  contact  with  the  rudest  elements  in 
Western  life,  yet  keeping,  through  all,  a  noble  faith 
in  manhood  and  womanhood;  Miss  Lyman,  starting 
from  the  most  distinguished  social  circle  in  Northamp- 


AN    APPENDIX.  495 

ton,  holding  a  high  place  among  what  Dr.  Holmes 
would  call  the  ''Brahmins"  of  Montreal,  and  finally 
polished  by  a  European  tour,  and  holding  control 
with  a  power  as  imperceptible  as  it  is  firm.  At 
Milwaukee,  beside  Dr.  Ross,  to  whose  ten  years  of 
successful  practice  I  have  alluded,  I  found  another 
physician,  in  happy  partnership  with  one  of  the  broth- 
ers of  the  craft,  a  Dr.  Glass.  He  has  lately  moved 
from  Minnesota  to  Wisconsin,  where  he  has  been 
several  years  in  partnership  with  Miss  Fairchild,  and 
testifies  that  he  has  never  seen  her  superior  as  a  prac- 
tical physician.  Here,  also,  a  young  lady,  of  one  of 
the  best  families,  has  lately  opened  a  hair-dresser's 
store.  Dr.  Ross  gives  her  sweet  sympathy  and  cheer; 
but,  as  a  proof  that  the  world  still  needs  converting, 
she  has  had  a  good  deal  of  that  insolence  to  subdue 
which  pains  just  as  much  as  if  it  were  worth  minding. 
Anything  like  the  number  of  female  lecturers  which 
I  heard  of  in  IlHnois,  I  had  never  imagined.  The 
medical  women  are  readily  accepted  in  most  places, 
even  without  proper  vouchers;  and  it  is  astonishing, 
how  far  common  sense  contrives  to  supply  the  place 
of  education.  But  the  want  of  vouchers  is  a  serious 
evil,  which  must  soon  be  met.  In  Chicago  I  heard 
wonderful  stories  of  the  business  capacity  of  certain 
women.  One  lady,  very  well  known  on  Michigan 
Avenue,  brought  one  hundred  thousand  dollars'  worth 
of  Chicago  city  bonds  to  Boston  and  New  York,  and 
safely  sold  them  for  her  husband.  A  farmer's  wife, 
from  the  centre  of  the  State,  came  up,  while  I  was 


496  TEN  years: 

there,  to  speculate  in  corn.  She  said  her  husband 
had  lost  money  several  years  in  succession,  and  now 
she  was  going  to  try.  By  her  first  speculation,  she 
made  five  thousand  dollars;  and  this  she  put  into 
competent  hands,  for  re-investment.  It  gained  her 
twenty  thousand  dollars.  The  Chicago  merchants 
thought  that  she  would  go  on  speculating  until  she 
lost  it  all;  but  I  do  not.  I  think  our  Pleasant-street 
Hospital  has  proved  that  women  are  more  cautious 
than  men,  and  are  willing  to  bear  a  good  deal  of 
obloquy  rather  than  permit  rash  ventures  to  be  made. 

In  the  country,  everywhere,  I  heard  charming  anec- 
dotes of  the  vigor  and  self-sacrifice  women  showed  in 
the  early  settlement  of  the  States. 

It  happened  one  spring,  that,  when  the  ice  broke  up 
on  the  Fox  River,  a  terrible  storm  of  wind  and  sleet 
and  rain  came  with  it.  Not  a  man  in  the  State,  how- 
ever great  the  emergency,  would  have  thought  that  he 
could  cross.  In  this  state  of  things,  a  woman  was 
taken  in  childbirth,  some  two  or  three  miles  from  the 
ferry.  Just  as  the  ferry-woman  was  going  to  bed,  in 
the  ''outer  darkness"  of  that  terrible  storm,  she  heard 
her  name  shouted  from  the  opposite  bank.  She  lis- 
tened, and  a  grievous  story  was  shouted  across.  She 
went  to  the  stable  and  saddled  her  mare,  and,  all  alone, 
forded  the  stream:  the  floating  ice,  heaped  into  walls, 
struck  the  sides  of  the  faithful  beast,  and  tore  the 
woman's  skirt  to  tatters.  Now  and  then  a  flash  of 
lightning  showed  her  what  progress  she  had  made. 
At  last,  she  struggled  to  the  bank,  and  gave  the  need- 


AN    APPENDIX.  497 

ful  help.  Nobody  ever  asked  how  she  got  back.  On 
the  grass  about  Elgin,  a  whole  ship's  load  died  of 
cholera,  nearly  forty  years  ago.  All  the  neighborhood 
stood  back  in  dread;  but  I  saw  one  aged  woman,  who 
closed  the  eyes  of  nine  and  received  the  foreign  bless- 
ing, which  she  felt,  although  she  could  not  understand. 
In  Quincy,  I  found  two  ladies  just  establishing  a  high 
school  for  girls,  whom  I  have  previously  mentioned  as 
having  pushed  through  the  endowment,  for  women, 
of  the  State  University  at  Lawrence,  and  having 
opened  a  class  in  modeUing  in  clay,  under  Professor 
Volkers.  At  the  Cooper  Institute  I  found  more 
women  at  work  than  ever  before,  and  to  better  advan- 
tage. A  large  class  had  just  been  formed  to  color 
photographs  on  glass,  porcelain,  and  paper.  Under 
such  circumstances,  we  need  not  be  disheartened 
because  an  ignorant  woman,  in  a  man's  costume,  has 
found  the  way  to  attract  some  attention  in  Europe 
and  some  contempt  from  Tom  Hughes.  Neither  need 
it  dismay  us  that  the  ''Boston  Advertiser"  thinks 
the  Equal-Rights  meetings,  in  New  York,  have  not 
been  largely  attended.  There  are  those  who  want 
the  suffrage,  who  do  not  care  to  encourage  women  to 
offer  themselves  for  Congress  before  public  opinion 
can  accept  them,  and  who  are  sufficiently  disgusted 
by  what  looks  like  a  mannish  coalition  with  Demo- 
crats, to  keep  away  from  public  meetings. 

Meanwhile,  the  women  of  Parma  clamor  for  the 
right  to  vote  for  Victor  Emanuel.  A  freedwoman, 
Charlotte  Scott,  proposes  a  monument,  on  behalf  of 


498  TEN  years: 

her  emancipated  race,  to  President  Lincoln;  and  the 
noble  inspiration  of  Harriet  Hosmer  carries  out  the 
thought. 

But  the  very  things  we  turn  from  force  the  neces- 
sary issues  on  the  world.  Wise  action  would  never 
have  brought  the  recent  debate  in  Congress;  nor  pru- 
dent measures  have  secured  thirty  votes  for  Mrs. 
Stanton,  and  nine  senatorial  ballots  for  female  suf- 
frage. Once  agitated  in  these  quarters,  the  matter 
draws  nearer  to  a  final  test. 

"Ride  on!  the  prize  is  near." 


L'ENVOI. 

My  Song,  I  do  believe  that  there  are  few 
Who  will  thy  reasoning  rightly  understand, 
To  them  so  hard  and  dark  is  thy  discourse. 
Hence,  peradventure,  if  it  come  to  pass 
That  thou  shouldst  find  thyself  with  persons  who 
Appear  unskilled  to  comprehend  thee  well, 
I  pray  thee,  then,  my  young  and  well-beloved, 
Be  not  discomforted;  but  say  to  them, 
"Take  note,  at  least,  how  beatUiful  I  am!" 

Dante,  from  the  ^^  Banquet" 

Art  thou  not  beautiful,  my  new-bwn  Song? 
Then  thou  art  piteous,  and  shalt  go  thy  way. 

Rime  ATpocrife,  G.  G. 


INDEX 


INDEX. 


Abbesses  in  England,  334,  335. 

Adams,  John,  on  his  wife,  28,  29. 

Adams,  Mrs.  John,  41 ;  quoted,  358. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  quoted,  29,  30. 

African  customs  with  regard  to  wo- 
men, 75,  76. 

Agriculture,  women  employed  in, 
160,  161,  172,  188,  450,  451. 

Aikin,  John,  M.D.,  and  his  sister,  78. 

Ain  or  Aisne,  France,  women  in  the 
council  of,  488. 

Albee,  Mrs.  Harriet  Ryan,  229,  245. 

Alexander,  William,  M.D.,  quoted, 
66,  78,  79. 

Alfred,  student,  extract  from,  xviii. 

Allen,  Pres.  A.  A.,  sketch  by,  xvii;. 

American  Nautical  Almanac,  wo- 
men employed  on  the,  202. 

Anne,  queen  of  Richard  II.,  157  n. 

Antagonistic  tone  of  the  author  de- 
fended, 184  n. 

Anthony,  Miss  S.  B.,  480. 

Antioch  College,  381-383,  392^05, 
494. 

"Antislavery  Standard,"  quoted, 
185n. 

Antonini,  Jeanne  Louise,  the  sailor 
and  soldier,  163. 

Arabs  reject  male  physicians,  431. 

Aristophanes  on  women,  52,  54-56. 

Arnott  scholarship,  426. 

Art-schools,  447-449. 

Ashfield,  ladies  on  the  School  Com- 
mittee of,  205. 

Ashley,  Lord,  quoted,  169. 

Aapasia,  the  true  history  of,  63-65. 

Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Social  Science,  336,  337. 

Associations  for  the  Promotion  of 
Social  Science,  379. 

Astell,  Mary,  her  attempted  college 
for  women,  369. 

Asylums,  matrons  in,  190,  232,  233. 

Atheists,  xU. 

Austin,  John,  his  "Province  of  Juris- 
prudence," edited  by  Mrs.  Austin, 
xlvii;  quoted,  265. 

Australia,  female  laborers  of,     159; 
female   suffrage   in,    487,    488;    an 
Australian  custom,  369. 

Austria,  female  suffrage  in,  485,  486. 

Avery,  Alida,  resident  physician  at 
Vassar  College,  410,  413,  493. 


Baker,  Mrs.  Betsey,  157  n. 

Baker  University,  380. 

Ballard,    Matilda,   gains   the   Arnott 

scholarship,  426. 
Bank  directors,  female,  472,  473. 
Barbauld,  Mrs.  A.  L.  A.,  her  essays 

praised  by  Fox,  78. 
Barbers,  female,  229. 
Baring,  Mrs.  Matthew,  490. 
Barney,  Eliza,  quoted,  197,  198. 
Barry,  Mrs.  Dr.,  491,  492. 
Basle,  deaconess  house  at,  428. 
Bedout,  Madame  de,  471. 
Bennett,    Mr.,  and    watchmaking   in 

England,  180,  181. 
Bent,  Ann,  200,  201. 
Bentham,  Jeremy,  290. 
Berg,    Mansell,    teaches    the    Laps, 

435. 
Berg^res,     France,     women    in     the 

council,  488. 
Berkeley,  Lady  Anne,  292. 
Bertha  the  spinner,  160,  161. 
Bex,  Madame,  inventor,  156  n. 
Bigelow,  Jacob  M.D.,  quoted,  82  n. 
Bih6ron,  Mademoiselle  M.  C,    128; 

inventor,  155  n. 
Bird,  Clementina,  printer,  199. 
Birmingham,  manufactories  of,  192. 
Blackstone,   Sir  William   Kt.,    on  a 

husband's  rights,  307. 
Blackwell,  Antoinette,  480;  Quoted, 

474^78. 
Blackwell,  Elizabeth,  engraver,  193. 
Blackwell,     Elizabeth,     M.D.,     429, 

432. 
"Blackwood's    Magazine,"    quoted* 

333,  334. 
Blood,  Frances,  friend  of  Mary  WoU- 

stonecraft,  88. 
Blooming-Grove  Church,  N.Y.,  ruled 

by  deacons  and  deaconesses,  399, 

440. 
Bodichon,  Mrs.   B.  L.,  338;  quoted, 

37  sqq.,   485;   author's  obligations 

to,  xiiii;    her   "Brief   Summary  of 

the  English  Law"  referred  to,  289; 

quoted,    296    sqq.;    her    "Woman 

and  Work"  quoted,  24,  485. 
Boivin,  Madame,  inventor,  155  n. 
Bologna,  women  of,  129. 
Bombay,     female     laborers     in     the 

ghauts  of,  158. 

|503| 


504 


INDEX. 


Bonheur,  Rosa,  226,  320,  361,  448; 
quoted,  276;  directress  of  the  Ecole 
Imp6riale  de  Dessein,  449. 

Books,  woman's  share  in  the  manu- 
facture of,  193. 

Booth,  Mary  L.  226  n. 

Booth,  Mrs.,  preaches,  436. 

Boston,  the  perishing  class  in,  xxxix; 
women  in  business  in,  199-201; 
need  of  a  training-school  for  ser- 
vants in,  238-240;  of  a  laundry, 
240;  of  a  ready-made  clothing 
store,  241-243;  of  a  knitting  fac- 
tory, 244,  245;  of  an  intelligence 
office,  251-258;  Association  for  the 
Promotion  of  Social  Science,  379; 
medical  education  in,  429,  430; 
art  schools  in,  447. 

"Boston  Advertiser,"  497. 

"Boston  Commonwealth,"  488. 

"Boston  News  Letter,"  printed  by  a 
woman,  199. 

Bowditch,  Nathaniel,  and  his  wife, 
327. 

Bowring,  Sir  John,  on  the  marriage 
service,  77. 

Braum,  Amelie  von,  preacher,  434. 

Bremer,  Fredrika,  108-110,  486,  492. 

Breton,  Madame,  inventor,  155  n. 

Brewster,  Anna,  quoted,  342. 

Brickmaking,  women  engaged  in, 
451. 

Bronte,  Charlotte,  "Jane  Eyre,"  112- 
115;  other  novels,  114. 

Brougham,  Henry,  Lord,  338;  quo- 
ted, 82  n. 

Brown,  Rev.  Olympia,  435,  436. 

Brown,  Mrs.  Susannah,  physician, 
226  n. 

Browne,  John  W.,  lii. 

Browning,  Mrs.  E.  B.,  Ill,  112,  338; 
quoted,  2,  111,  112,  178,  265;  her 
"Aurora  Leigh,"  43,  111. 

Browning,  Robert,  110,  111. 

Brulow,  widow,  the  soldier,  163, 
164. 

Brushmakers,  women  as,  195. 

Buckle,  T.  H.,  134,  339;  quoted,  57; 
on  moral  effort,  250,  251. 

Burnet,  Bishop  Gilbert,  opposes  a 
college  for  women,  369. 

Button-factory  at  Easthampton,  459, 
460. 

Buttons,  manufacture  of,  192. 

Byfield,  Mary,  wood-engraver,  193. 

Byron,  Lord,  58. 

Calcutta,   female   masons  in,    158. 

Miss  Carpenter's  schools  in,  427. 
Calico-mills,  170. 
Canada,  laws  of,  in  regard  to  women, 

283,  339-341. 
Cards,  manufacture  of,  193. 
Caribs,  customs  of,  171,  172. 


Carlyle,  Thomas,  quoted,  126,  133, 
221. 

Caroline,  Queen,  trial  of,  325. 

Carpenter,  Mary,  370,  427. 

Carving,  wood,  227-229. 

"Censor,  The,"  199. 

Channing,  William  E.,  201;  quoted 
87. 

Chapin,  Caroline,  417,  418. 

Chapin,  Edwin  H.,  D.D.,  quoted, 
142. 

Chapin,  Mary,  quoted,  414-418. 

Charles  II.,  society  in  the  time  of,  66. 

Chicago,  female  speculators  of,  495. 

Chinese  treatment  of  wives,  269. 

Chishoim,  Caroline,  370. 

Cholera  at  Elgin,  497. 

Christian,  Edward,  quoted,  307. 

Clark,  Mrs.,  quells  a  mutiny,  174. 

Clark,  Professor  John  E.,  399,  400. 

Clarke,  Madame,  460,  461. 

Clarke,  Freeman,  decides  that  wo- 
men cannot  be  bank  directors, 
472. 

Clarke,  Mrs.  Mary  A.  T.,  her  in- 
trigues, 325,  326. 

Classical  study,  51-60. 

Clerk  of  the  Crown  in  the  Court  of 
Queen's  Bench,  the  office  of,  held 
by  a  woman,  291. 

Clerks,  female,  187,  191,  197,  202, 
363,  457. 

Clint,  Elizabeth  and  Mary,  wood- 
engravers,  193. 

Clothing,  ready-made,  241-244. 

Coal-mines,  women  working  in,  168, 
169. 

Coast  Survey,  women  employed  on 
the,  202. 

Cobbett,  William,  quoted,  167. 

Cochin-China,  women  of,  158. 

Code  Napoleon,  277-286. 

Ccelebes  Island,  laws  and  customs  of, 
269. 

Colleges,  380-418,  493,  494;  should 
be  under  female  supervision,  7  n. 

Comfort,  committee  of,  236  n. 

Condorcet,  M.  J.  A.  N.  Caritat,  Mar- 
quis de,  277. 

Confessors,  usefulness  of,  235  n. 

Connecticut  Blue-laws,  1,  267;  female 
suffrage  in,  257;  marriage  law,  348, 
352. 

Cooper  Institute,  447;  class  to  color 
photographs  at,  497. 

Corbin,  Mrs.  C.  F.,  quoted,  150  n. 

Corbin,  Hannah,  358. 

Cossacks'  prejudice  against  male 
physicians,  431. 

Cotton,  manufacture  of,  165. 

Cousin,  Victor,  quoted,  19. 

Coventry,  the  first  steam-factory  in, 
182 

Craig,  Austin,  D,  D.,  399. 


INDEX. 


505 


Craig,  Miss,  quoted,  140. 

Craik,    Mrs.    D.    M.    Muloch,    her 

"Thoughts     about    Women."     123- 

125. 
Cram,  Rev.  Mrs.  Nancy  G..  437. 
Cranch,  Judge  William,  his  respect 

for  women,  21. 
Crawford,  Thomas  G.,  his  Beethoven, 

220. 
Cruelty  as  a  cause  of  divorce,  347. 
Curtis,   Martha  B.,  plants  the  first 

potatoes  in  New  England,  200. 

Dames  de  la  Halle,  Les,  332. 

Dante  Aligheri,  quoted,  499. 

Darling,  Grace,  189. 

Sascomb,  Mrs.  Marianne  P.,  princi- 
pal of  Oberlin  College,  494. 

Davis,  James,  quoted,  314,  317. 

Day,  Thomas,  101;  quoted,  69. 

Deaconess,  427-429,  440. 

Death  or  dishonor,  xxxiz,  133-177. 

Decoudray,  Madame,  inventor,  155  n. 

Demars,  Clara,  quoted,  276. 

Dentists,  female,  205. 

Dignhen  van  den  Plasse,  Madame, 
157  n. 

Disraeli,  Benjamin,  quoted,  168. 

Divorce,  297-299,  306,  338,  339,  346, 
347. 

Dix,  Dorothea  L.,  232. 

Dixon,  Hepworth,  quoted,  290. 

Doderidge,  Sir  John,  author  of 
"Lawe's  Resolution,"  289,  290. 

Domestic  duties  not  to  be  neglected, 
128,  129. 

Dora  d'Istria,  427. 

Draper,  Margaret,  printer,  199. 

Dress,  love  of,  the  cause  of  prostitu- 
tion, xl. 

Dressmakers,  140,  141. 

Druggists,  female,  198. 

Druses,  "Literature  fit  only  for  wo- 
men," 21. 

Dryden,  John,  "No  sex  in  souls," 
287. 

Dry-goods  stores  kept  by  women, 
197,  198,  201. 

Duch4telet. — See    Parent-DuchAtelet. 

Dutillet,   Madame,    inventor,   156n. 

Edgeworth,  Maria,  101. 

"Edinburgh  Review,"  xliv;  quoted, 
140,  182,  187,  222. 

"Edinburgh  Weekly  Journal,"  quo- 
ted, 334  n. 

Editors,  female,  184,  338. 

Education  of  women,  1-130;  a  ne- 
cessary experiment,  6,  7;  present 
standard  of,  18;  every  faculty 
should  be  cultivated,  126. 

Elocution,  female  teachers  of,  222-224. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  on  Marga- 
ret Fuller,  1}9-121. 


Employers,  women's  relations  to, 
136  sqq.,  186. 

Employments  of  women  in  England, 
188-195;  in  the  United  States, 
196-207. 

England,  education  of  women  in, 
20-23;  female  suffrage  in,  483- 
485;  laws  respecting  women  in, 
287-341;  number  of  and  classifica- 
tion of  female  workers  in,  188-195; 
sale  of  wives  in,  166,  167. 

English  literature,  woman  in,  84,  85. 

"EngUshwoman's  Journal,"  xliii;  edi- 
tors of,  338. 

Engraving,  193,  227-229. 

Euripides  on  women,  53,  54. 

"Evening  Post,"  quoted,  465. 

Executor,  prefatory  note,  iii. 

Faibchild,  James  H.,  President  of 
Oberlin  College,  386,  389,  391. 

Fairchild,  Miss,  physician,  495. 

Fajardo,  Madame  Maria,  pharma- 
cienne,  185  n. 

Family,  the,  366-368. 

Farmers'  wives  sewing  for  money, 
the  evil  of,  139,  454. 

Famham,  Mrs.  Eliza  W.,  490. 

Fashionable  people,  xUi. 

Fauveau,  F61icie  de,  sculptor,  sketch 
of,  xliii, 215-220. 

Ferguson,  Adam,  quoted,  376. 

Finney,  Charles  G.,  President  of 
Oeberlin  College,  384-391. 

Fisheries,  women  employed,  in  189. 

Flavors,  133. 

Flowers,  artificial,  195. 

Fordyce,  James,  D.D.,  quoted,  69. 

Formosa  Isles,  customs  of,  with  re- 
gard to  women,  74,  75. 

Fox,  Charles  J.,  and  Dr.  Aiken,  78. 

Fox  River,  496. 

France,  laws  relating  to  women  in, 
274-286. 

Franklin,  Mrs.  Anne,  and  her  daugh- 
ters, printers,  198,  199. 

Freemantle, ,  quoted,  325. 

Fruit,  preserving  and  candying,  230, 
231. 

Fuller,  Margaret. — See  Ossoli. 

Fuller,  Thomas,  quoted,  334,  335. 

Fuseli,  originally  Fuessli,  J.  H.,  and 
Mary  Wollstonecraft,  91,  92. 

"Galiqnani,"  quoted,  162. 
Gannett,  Ezra  S.,  D.D.,  201. 
Garratt,  Thomas,  474. 
Garrett,  Elizabeth,  physician,  27  »., 

28  n.,  483. 
Garrows,  laws  and  customs  of  the, 

269,  270. 
Gaskell,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  C.  S.,  338, 

492;  her  "Life  of  C.  Bront6,"  107. 

108;  quoted,  198. 


506 


INDEX. 


Gay,  D6sir6e,  277. 

Geneva,  428. 

Germany,    education    of    women    in 

1740,   19;   condition  of  women  in 

1865,  471. 
Ghauts  of  Bombay,  female  laborers 

in  the,  158. 
Giles,    Nellv,   at   the   Battle   of   the 

Nile,  164. 
Glarus,  marriage  laws  of,  315. 

Glass, ,  M.D.,  495. 

Godwin,  Mrs.  Mary  Woolstonecraft, 

290,  369;  her  "Vindication  of  the 

Rights  of  Woman,"  83-87;   sketch 

of  her  life,  87-95;  defence  of,  96- 

101. 
Godwin,  William,  95;  43,  96. 
Gold  chain,  manufacture  of,  192. 
Gooch,  Robert,  M.D.,  23. 
Governesses,  145. 
Graham,  Judge,  353,  354. 
Grand     Chamberlain,     two     women 

filled  the  office  of,  291. 
Greene,  Cordelia  A.,  433. 
Gregory,  John,  M.D.,  68,  69. 
Griflath,   Mrs.,  marine   botanist,   42, 

370. 
Grocers,  female,  197,  198,  200. 
Gunning,  458. 

Gurdon,  Thornhagh,  quoted,  334. 
Gurney,  Anna,  sketch  of,  170,  171. 
Guy,  John,  founds  a  hospital,  405. 
Gymnastics,  female  teachers  of,  232, 

493. 

Haggo,  William,  200. 

Hairdressers,  female,  457,  495. 

Halliday,  Mr.,  quoted,  466. 

Happiness,  woman  created  not  only 
for,  126. 

Harris  v.  Butler,  323. 

Harvard  College,  430. 

Hart,  J.  S.,  Manual  Am.  Literature, 
xiii. 

Hastings,  Marquess  of,  quoted,  269. 

Haven,  Samuel  F.,  author's  obliga- 
tions to,  li. 

Hayes,  Matilda  M.,  338,  483. 

Hedge,  F.  W.,  D.D.,  quoted,  117. 

Hedges,  Mrs.,  a  preacher,  437,  439. 

Heidenreich,  Frau,  M.  T.  C.  nee  Hei- 
land  (see  Preface),  physician,  225 
n.,  226  n. 

Kekekyan  Effendi,  quoted,  33-35. 

Helps,  Arthur,  quoted,  235. 

Hericourt,  Madame  Jenny  P.  de,  her 
"Femme  Affranchie,"  xlix. 

Hemdon,  William  H.,  author's  obli- 
gations to,  li;  quoted,  350,  351. 

Higginson,  Thomas  W.,  author's  ob- 
ligations to,  xliii,  U;  quoted,  18, 
292,  335;  states  that  two  women 
have  been  Grand  Chamberlains, 
291. 


Hilda,  the  Abbess,  334. 

Hill,  Charlotte,  violinist,  458. 

Hill,     Octavia,     her    lodging-houses, 

467. 
Hillman,  Mrs.  Mehi table  H.,  grocer, 

200. 
Hinde,  Mary,  printer,  194. 
Holliday,  AUce,  in  Egypt,  32-37. 
"Home  Visitor,"  184. 
Homer,  quoted,  15. 
Hooker,  Richard,  quoted,  265. 
Horse-breaker,  female,  162. 
Hosmer,   George   W.,    D.D.,   at  An- 

tioch  College,  382,  394,  397-399. 
Hosmer,   Harriet   G.,    sculptor,    361, 

498. 
Hosmer,  Professor  James  K.,  399. 
Hours  of  female  work,  141,  168-170, 

455. 
Housewives,  college  for,  413. 
Howard  Univel-sity,  380. 
Howitt,  Mary,  338,  483. 
Hughes,  Thomas,  497. 
Hungary,  marriage  law  in,  309,  310; 

suffrage  in,  486,  487. 
Hunt,  Harriot  K.,  M.D.,  her  protests, 

364,  473. 
Hunter,  William,  M.D.,  135  n. 
Husbands,  duties  of,  365-368;  rights 

of,  307,  368. 
"Hypatia,"  vindication  of,  62,  63. 

Idleness,  curse  of,  179. 

Illinois,  marriage  law  in,  346,  349- 
351;  suffrage  in,  481;  female  lec- 
turers and  physicians  in,  495. 

Imlay,  Gilbert,  his  connection  with 
Mary  Wollstonecraft,  92-95. 

Impurity  of  mind  and  language, 
80-82,  125. 

Inchbald,  Mrs.  Elizabeth,  95,  97. 

Indian  squaws,  North-American  172. 

Industrial  schools,  238-251. 

Ingersoll,  Charles  A.,  li. 

Insanity,  178;  insanity  and  mar- 
riage, 297. 

Inspectors  of  women's  work  should 
be  women,  186,  224. 

Intelligence  offices,  251-259. 

Inventors,  female,  155  n.,  156  n. 

Ireland,  right  to  vote  for  town  com- 
missioners in,  488. 

Isabelle,  Madame,  horse-breaker,  162. 

Ishocmachus,  53. 

Italy,  education  of  women  in,  23; 
female  suffrage  in,  486. 

Jackson,  Fanny,  389,  390. 
Jackson,  Francis,  his  will,  471. 
Jails,  matrons  in,  190,  232,  233. 
Jameson,   Mrs.  Anna    M.,  xlii,   104, 

105,  338,  370;  quoted,  22,  24,  105- 

107. 
Jenkins,  Rev.  Lydia  A.,  436. 


INDEX. 


507 


Jobson,  Mr.,  offers  to  teach  women 

dentistry,  205. 
Johnson,  Anna,  quoted,  161. 
Johnson,    Letitia,    and    sister,    their 

crockery  shop,  200. 
Johnson,  Miss,  at  the  Normal  School, 

Framingham,  17,  18. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  LL.D.,  quoted,  317. 
Juries,  women  on,  330. 
Justinian,  273. 

Kaiserwerth,  23,  427. 
Kansas,  female  suffrage  in,  357,  473. 
Kapnist,  Mr.,  quoted,  10. 
Kauffmann,    Angelica,    an    engraver, 

193 
Kemble,  Mrs.  Fanny,  223. 
Kent,  James,  chancellor,  quoted,  343. 
Kentucky,    female   suffrage   in,   357, 

480. 
Kerfoot,  Bishop,  429. 
King,     Mrs.     Elizabeth,     physician, 

226  n. 
Kingaley,    Charles,    his    "Hypatia," 

62. 
Kirkland,  Mrs.  CaroUne  M.  S.,  130, 

quoted,  76. 
Knitting  factory  in  Boston  suggested, 

244,  245. 
Knitting  of  Welsh  farmers,  9. 
Kohl,  Johann  G.,  quoted  161,  269. 
Koltz  off-Massalsky,  H.  Ghika,  Prin- 
cess, 427. 
Kriidner,     Madame    Julie    de    Wie- 

tinghoff.  Baroness  de,  446,  447. 
Kwei  Chunk  Fu,  quoted,  221. 

Labor,  disgust  at,  xl;  woman's  need 

to  labor,  179;  female  labor  exchange, 

253-259. 
Lacemakers,  141. 
Lamb,   Charles,   on   Letitia   Landon, 

21,  22. 
Lamourous,    Marie    de,    277;    foun- 
dress of  the  House   of   Mercy  at 

Bordeaux,  155  n. 
Language,     women    should    be    the 

teachers  of,  222-224. 
Laundry,  plan  of  a  pubUc,  in  Boston, 

240,  241. 
Law,     263-374;     English     Common, 

287-341;  French,  274-286;  United 

States,  342-374. 
Law-Amendment  Society,  339. 
"Lawe's  Resolution  of  the  Rights  of 

Women,"    xxi;    quoted,    288;    its 

author,  289,  290. 
Lawrence  University,  414-418. 
^  Lawyers,  female,  330-469. 

Lecturers,  female  in  lUinois,  495. 
Lectures  to  women,  10. 
Lee,  Richard  H.,  quoted,  359. 
Legouve,   Ernest,   quoted,    155,  224, 

281, 293-295. 


Leipsie    wonlen's    convention    at,    in 

1865,  471. 
Lemonnier,     Madame    Charles,    her 

schools  for  women,  490,  491. 
Lester,     Mrs.     Lucretia,     physician, 

226  n. 
Lille,    Lady    Alice,    pleads    her    own 

cause,  335. 
"Lily,  The,"  184. 
Lisbon,  medico-chirurgical  school  of, 

185  n. 
Literary  men  and  women,  their  duty 

to  invigorate  public  opinion,  45. 
Lithography,  228,  229. 
Liverpool,  training-school  for  nurses 

at,  418-426;  Liverpool  ware,  194. 
Livingstone,  David,  quoted,  75,  76. 
Lodging-houses,  463-467. 
Lombard  University,  381. 
London,  Queen's  College,  426;  Work- 
ing-women's College,  427;  Society 

for  the  Rescue  of  Young  Women, 

151;   "The   Times,"    337;   quoted, 

488. 
Loring,  Charles  G.,  430. 
Louis  XIV.,  society  in  the  time  of, 

66. 
Louisiana,  law  of,  regarding  women, 

283-285. 
Love,  dying  for,  125,  126. 
Lowell,  Charles,  233. 
Lowell  Institute,  8,  379,  447. 
Luce,  Madame,  in  Algiers,  37. 
Lyman,  Hannah,  410^12,  493-495. 
Lynn,  Mass.,  shoemaking  in,  207. 

Macattlay,  Catharine,  290. 

McConnell,  Rev.  Mr.,  of  Yellow 
Springs,  398,  401. 

Machinery,  female  makers  of,  174, 
175. 

Magill,  Mr.  of  the  Boston  Latin 
School,  418. 

Mahomet,  quoted,  373. 

Mahratta  amazon,  270. 

Maine,  H.  S.,  quoted,  295. 

Maine  marriage  laws,  349,  353. 

Man's  duties,  365-368. 

Manufacturies,  opposition  to  female 
labor  in,  180-184. 

Marble,  artificial,  156  n. 

Marian,  the  Bible  woman,  236-238. 

Marie  Antoinette,  277. 

Marriage  laws,  271-318,  338,  339, 
343-355,  469-471;  mock  marriage 
dissolved  over  a  tombstone,  334. 

Married  Woman's  Property  Act  of 
1857,  338;  of  1858,  in  Canada, 
339. 

Marshall,  Mrs.,  inventor,  156  n. 

Martineau,  Harriet,  42,  43,  101,  104, 
338,  370,  484;  quoted,  104;  Mar- 
garet Fuller's  criticism  on,  118, 
119. 


5a8 


INDEX. 


Massachusetts   marriage   laws,   346- 

349,  353,  354,  469;  suffrage  in,  481; 

Technological  Institute,  379. 
Matos,  Madame  Caroline  de,  phar- 

macienne,  185  n.  • 
Matrons  in  asylums,  jails,  etc.,  190, 

232,  233. 
Mayhew,  Henry,  145;  quoted,  146- 

148. 
Medical  schools,  24-27,  429-434. 
Mendelssohn  Bartholdy,  Felix,  quoted, 

377. 
Mending-school,  456. 
Merchants,  female,  197-201. 
Merian,  Maria  S.,  entomologist  and 

engraver,  her  accuracy  indicated, 

489. 
Michelet,  Jules,  276,  277. 
Michigan,   divorce   in,   346;   suffrage 

in,    481;    University    of,    45,    414, 

418. 
Mill,  John  S.,  290,  488;  presents  to 

Parliament   a   petition   for   female 

suffrage,  483;  quoted,  326-329. 
Mill,  Mrs.  John  S.,  276;  quoted,  337; 

eulogy  upon,  by  her  husband,  327- 

329. 
Milton,  John,  quoted,  2. 
Mining,  women  employed  in,  189. 
Missouri,  marriage  law  in,  349,  470; 

suffrage  in,  473. 
Mitchell,   Maria,  202,  407,  409-412; 

493;  quoted,  44. 
Moniot,  Madame,  claims  civil  rights, 

277,  333. 
Mops,  232. 

Moral  effort.  Buckle  on,  250,  251. 
Morandi,  Madame,  inventor,  155  n. 
Morata,  Olympja,  129. 
Mora-sda,  female  suffrage  in,  488. 
Morgan,    Sir    Charles,    the    maiden 

aunt  of,  302,  303. 
Morgan,    Sydney    O.,    Lady,    sketch 

of,  101-104;  quoted,  67,  68,  103. 
Morton,  Helen,  physician,  430. 
Mott,  Lucretia,  female  orator,  210, 

446. 
Mozzoni,  Anna  M.,  authoress,  23. 
Moulton,  Women  of  the  Century,  xiv. 
Muloch,  Dinah  M. — See  Craik. 
Murray,  Mrs.  Elizabeth,  letter  from, 

448,  449. 
Musicians,  female,  458. 
Mygale,  the,  489,  490. 

Nantucket     women     in     business, 

197-199. 
• '  National  Intelligencer,"  quoted,  359. 
Neatness,  128,  129. 
Nebraska,  female  suffrage  in,  357. 
Necker,   Jacques,   his  tribute  to  his 

wife,  327. 
Nesbit,     Charlotte,     wood-engraver, 

193. 


New-Hampshire  marriage  law,   348, 

353. 
New  Jersey,  female  suffrage  in,  356, 

357,  474-480. 
Newspapers,  bad  influence  of,  79-81. 
Newton,  Mrs.  Severn,  artist,  492. 
New  York  City,  prostitution  in,  142. 

143. 
"New  York  Evening  Post,"  488. 
New    York    State,    female    suffrage 

in,    481;    law    respecting    married 

women's   evidence,   469;   marriage 

law  of,  346,  348,  354-356. 
"New  York  Tribune,"  489;  quoted, 

354,  356. 
Nichols,  Mrs.,  sails  the  ship  "Grotto," 

173,  174. 
Niebuhr,  B.  G.,  quoted,  18,  19,  46. 
Nightingale,    Florence,    23,    106    n., 

122,  123,  233,  337,  370. 
Normal  School,  Boston,  10. 
Norton,  Hon.  Mrs.  CaroUne  E.  S.  S., 

and  her  husband,  308,  309. 
Notary    public.    Miss    Stebbins    ap- 
pointed a,  469. 
Novels,  influence  of,  50,  51. 
Nurses,    29    n.,    122;    training-school 

for,  at  Liverpool,  418-426. 

Oberlin  College,  381-392. 

Ohio  marriage  law,  349,  353. 

Orator,  female,  210. 

Oratory,  female  teachers  of,  222-224. 

Oread  Institute,  43. 

Orton,  Edward,  400. 

Ossoli,  S.  M.  Fuller,  Marchioness  d', 

112,  115-121,  370;  quoted,  56,  57, 

70,  81,  116-119,  210. 
Otaheite,     Queen    of,    her    physcial 

strength,  74. 
Ovid,  indelicacy  of,  58. 
Oxford,  ladies'  classes  at,  426. 

Packington,  Lady,  292,  335. 
Paine,  Fanny,  457,  458. 
Palmer,  Mrs.,  a  refugee,  403-405. 
Parent-Duchatelet,  Alexandre  J.  B., 

quoted,  140,  151,  294. 
Paris,  prostitution  in,  140,  151,  294. 
Parish  clerk,  a  female,  291. 
Parker,  a  Friend,  479. 
Parker,  Theodore,  quoted,  172,  367. 
Parkes,  Bessie  R.,  ,338,  484;  author's 

obligations  to,  xliii. 
Parkman,  Francis,  D.D.,  446. 
Parma,  women  of,  497. 
Passevant,  Rev.  Mr.,  428. 
Pastors,  233-236. 
Patmore,  Coventry,  his  "Betrothal," 

etc.,  22,  277. 
Patton,  John,  li. 

Patton,  Mrs.  Mary,  47,  48,  123,  173. 
Paula,  Santa,  122,  123. 
Peck,  Mrs.,  physician,  226  n. 


CONTENTS. 


509 


Pembroke,  Couatesa  of,  sheriff,  292. 
Pennsylvania,   354;   high  schools  in, 

429;  widows'  property  law  in,  472; 

Medical  Society,  185  n. 
Pens,  manufacture  of,  192. 
Perfumes,  133. 

Perishing  classes,  xxxix,  134  sqq. 
Peru,  customs  with  regard  to  women 

in,  74,  75. 
Peters,    Madame   Louise   O.,   at    the 

Leipsic  Convention,  471. 
"Philadelphia  Daily  Register,"    183. 

184. 
Philadelphia  Mercantile  Library,  474. 
"Philadelphia     Sunday      Dispatch," 

quoted,  185  n. 
Phillips,  Wendell,  quoted,  362.  374. 
X    Physicians,  female,  27,  28,  182,    225, 

226,    364,   410^13,   429-434.    462, 

473^78,  480,  491-493,  495. 
Pickles,  manufacture  of,  231. 
Pinmakers,  female,  170. 
Pitcairn's  Island,  female  suffrage  in, 

341. 
Plater,  Countess  Emily,  210. 
Pleasant-street      Hospital,      Boston, 

496. 
Postmistresses,  291. 
Powell,  Miss  Elizabeth,  professor  of 

gymnastics  at  Vassar  College,  493. 
Poynter,  Thomas,  quoted,  316,  347. 
•  Preachers,  female,  434-447. 

Printers,  female,  194,  198,  199,  467- 

469;  opposition  to,  183,  184,  450. 
Printers'   Convention  at   Springfield, 

199. 
Prisons,  matrons  in,  190,  232,  233. 
Prostitution,  xxxix-xUi,  134  sqq.,  235 

n;  statistics  of,  140-145,  294. 
Proverbs,  49,  270,  271. 
Public  opinion,  46-130. 
Putnam,  A.  P.,  Songs  and  Singers,  etc.. 


"Quarterly  Review,"  quoted,  xlvii, 

269,  339. 
Quincy,    111.,    high    school    for   girls, 

497. 

Rachel,  the  actress,  223. 

R6camier,  Madame  Jeanne  A.  J. 
F.  B.,  277. 

Redpath,  Jas.,  C.  H.  Dall,  v. 

Reid,  Mrs.  Hugo,  author's  obliga- 
tions to,  xlix;  quoted,  312.  318. 

Register  of  deeds,  female,  206. 

Republicanism,  objections  to,  4,  5. 

Restaurant,  suggestion  of  a  cheap, 
in  Boston,  239  n.,_240  .». 

Reugger,  Mademoiselle,  physician, 
431,  432. 

"Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,"  quoted, 
286. 

Rexford,  Ann.  a  preacher,  436. 


Rhode    Island    marriage    laws,    348. 

349,  351. 
Rimmer,  Dr.  William,  447. 
Rio    Janeiro,    Convent    of    Nuestra 

Senhora  da  Ajuda,  269. 
Ripley  College,  380. 
Riso,  Ignacia,  164,  165. 
Roberts,  Rev.  Abigail  H.,  437,  438. 
Rogers,  Miss,  32,  33,  39. 
Roland,  Madame  Marie  J.  P.,  277. 
Roland,  Pauline,  claims  civil  rights. 

277,  333. 
Roman  law,  the,  respecting  women, 

272  sqq. 
Rondet,  Madame,  inventor,  156  n. 
Rose,  Olive,  register  of  deeds,  206. 
Ross,    ,    female   physician,    433, 

495. 
Rossi,    Properzia    de',    wood-carver, 

227  228 
Rous.' Lady,  sheriff,  292. 
Rousseau,  Jean  J.,  quoted,  68. 
Ruskin,     John,     435;     his     lodging- 
houses,  467;  quoted,  xlviii,  127, 128. 

342. 

Russeil, ,  quoted,  330. 

Russell,  Penelope,  printer,  199. 
Ryan,  Harriet. — See  Albee,  Mrs. 

Sable,  Madame  Madeleine  de  Sou- 
vr6.  Marquise  de,  19,  41. 

Sailors,  female.  47.  173,  174. 

St.  John,  James  Augustus,  quoted. 
55. 

St.  Lawrence  University.  380. 

St.  Loup,  428. 

Sand,  George,  (Madame  Dudevant), 
276. 

Sanger,  William  W.,  his  book  criti- 
cised, xl;  quoted,  144. 

School  committees,  women  on,  205, 
470. 

School  of  Design  at  Marlborough 
House,  opposition  to  female  pupils, 
23,  182. 

School  of  Design  in  New  York,  227. 

School  for  the  professional  instruc- 
tion of  women,  490,  491. 

Schools  in  charge  of  women,  17. 

Schools  of  design,  184,  203. 

Scofield,  Sarah  Ann,  sketch  of,  174, 
175. 

Scott,  Charlotte,  freedwoman.  pro- 
poses a  monument  to  Lincoln,  497. 
498. 

Scott.  Sir  Walter,  quoted,  334  n. 

Sculptors,  female,  361,  492,  498. 

Sedgwick,  Catharine  Maria,  130. 

Seduction  has  no  legal  remedy,  323, 
324. 

Servants,  training-school  for,  238-240. 

Sewall,  Lucy  E.,  physician,  430. 

Sewall,  Samuel  E.,  348,  469;  revises 
the  present  work,  li. 


510 


INDEX. 


Sewing,  139;  should  be  taught  to 
both  sexes,  8,  9. 

Shakespeare,  quoted,  264,  287,  374. 

Shedden,  Miss,  lawyer,  330,  469. 

Sheriffs,  female,  292. 

Shoe  manufacture,  207. 

Siddons,  Mrs.,  and  Mary  WoUstone- 
craft,  96,  97. 

Sigourney,  Mrs.  Lydia  H.,  130. 

Silk  manufacture,  166,  453. 

Sirault,  Madame,  of  Pau,  France, 
quoted,  211. 

Slop-shops,  139,  141,  146,  147. 

Smith,  Sydney,  quoted,  9,  157. 

Social  Science,  Association  for  the 
Advancement  of,  336,  337;  for  the 
Promotion  of,  379. 

Society  for  the  Employment  of 
Women,  455. 

Soldiers,  female,  163-165. 

Sophocles,  quoted,  265. 

Sorbonne,  the,  79;  course  of  study 
for  women  in,  211. 

South  Carolina,  divorce  in,  346. 

Southold,  N.  Y.,  female  physicians 
in,  226  n. 

Spencer,  Miss,  accoucheuse,  182. 

Stael-Holstein,  Madame  Anne  L.  G. 
N.,  Baroness  de,  277;*quoted,  59, 70. 

Staffordshire,  women  of,  paint  crock- 
ery, 182,  183. 

Stanton,  Mrs.  E.  C,  355,  480,  481, 
498. 

Starch,  157  n. 

Stephenson,  Robert,  169. 

Stone,  Lucy,  480;  quoted,  474-478. 

Stowe,  Mrs.  Harriet  E.  B.,  quoted, 
343,  344. 

Strassburg,  deaconesses'  school  at, 
427. 

Straw,  braiding  of,  157  n. 

Suffrage,  female,  110,  281,  282,  292, 
293,  295,  319-326,  329,  356-364, 
372,  473-489,  493,  498;  petition  to 
The  English  Parliament  for,  483. 

Sumner,  Charles,  and  female  suf- 
frage, 482. 

Sundew,  260. 

Sweden,  female  preachers  in,  434, 
435;  female  suffrage  in,  110,  329, 
486;  woman's  property  in,  110. 

Tailors,  186. 

Tait,  William,  quoted,  143. 

Talleyrand-P6rigord,  Charles  Mau- 
rice de.  Prince  de  Benevant,  277. 

Tambroni,  Clotilda,  professor  of 
Greek,  129. 

Tappan,  Arthur,  384. 

Taste,  the  value  of,  201. 

Taxation  and  representation,  359, 
362-364. 

Taylor,  Miss  Helen,  writes  for  the 
"Westminster,"  485. 


Taylor,  Mrs.  Janet,  42,  370. 
Teachers,    female,    their    wages    and 

social      position,      10-18;      prefer 

mathematics  to  classics,  18. 
Teeth,  artificial,  195. 
Telegraphic  reporters,  female,  191. 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  his  "Idylls,"   71; 

quoted,  132. 
Textile  manufactures  of  the  United 

States,   statistics  of  the  men  and 

women  employed  on,  202. 
Theodora,  wife  of  Justinian,  273. 
Thompson,  George,  quoted,  482. 
Tilton,  Theodore,  45,  418,  488. 
Timmins,  Rev.  Mrs.,  436. 
Toronto,  298. 

Tothill,  William,  quoted,  338  n.,  339  n. 
Tristan,  Flora,  277. 
Turks  ashamed  of  their  wives,  269. 

United  States,  employments  of 
women  in  the,  196-207;  marriage 
laws,  342-374. 

Upsala,  female  suffrage  in,  110,  329. 

Vassar    College,    44,    405-414,    493^ 

494. 
Vaudois  peasant  women,  342. 
Veratti,  Laura,  129. 
Vermont    marriage    law,    346,    348,^ 

351,  352. 
Vigny,  Alfred  de,  criticism  upon  hia 

"Cinq-Mars,"    by    Lady    Morgan, 

66-68. 
"Virginia      Gazette,"      edited      and 

printed  by  a  woman,  199. 
Vishnu  Sarma,  quoted,  267,  268. 
Volkers,  Professor,  497. 

Wages,  136-149,  196,  207,  286,  313, 
451-455,  468,  471,  472. 

Wallis,  Captain  Samuel,  at  Otaheite^ 
74. 

Waltham  watch-factory,  204. 

Ware,  Mary,  201. 

Watchmakers,  opposition  to  women 
as,  in  England  and  Switzerland^ 
180,  181;  watch-factory  at  Wal- 
tham, Mass.,  204. 

West  Indies,  female  laborers  in  the^ 
159. 

"Westminster  Review,"  485,  quoted^ 
42,  317. 

Weston,  Professor  J.  B.,  399. 

White,  Jessie  Meriton,  unable  to  ob- 
tain medical  instruction,  24-26. 

White,  Joseph,  16. 

Whitehead,  William  A.,  quoted, 
476. 

Whitman,  Mrs.,  238. 

Wightfred's  Council,  abbesses  in,  334. 

Williams,  Helen  Maria,  93. 

Williams,  Marianne,  wood-engraver^ 
193. 

Wilson,  George,  quoted,  133. 


INDEX. 


511 


Wisconsin,  suffrage  in,  481. 

Wittembach,  Frau,  128. 

Wives,  advice  to,  368;  Oriental,  268, 
269;  sale  of,  in  England,  166,  167; 
tributes  to  certain,  by  their  hus- 
bands, 28,  29,  327-329.— See  also 
Marriage. 

Wollstonecraft,  Mary, — See  Godwin, 
Mrs. 

Woman-suffrage  Association,  485. 

Wood-carving,  227-229. 

Wood-engraving,  193,  203,  227. 

Woodlock,  Mrs.  Ellen,  her  industrial 
schools,  246-251. 

Wool,  manufacture  of,  165. 

Work,  need  of,  207-210. 

•'Woman's  Rights,"  the  phrase,  360. 


Woman's-rights  party,  misrepresen- 
tations of  the  American,  106,  123. 

Women  in  business  for  themselves, 
138,  187,  197-201;  women's  claims 
to  labor,  135  sqq.',  their  physical 
strength,  159-174;  their  quickness 
in  learning,  44;  respect  for  women 
as  laborers,  196,  208. 

Wright,  Fanny,  quoted,  73,  74. 

York,  Frederick,  Duke  of,  his  trial, 
325. 


Zakrzewska, 


Zinzendorf,    N.   L 
his  wife,  126. 


Marie,     M.D.,     429^ 
Count   von,    on. 


THE  END. 


RETURh 
TO— ^ 

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Un.vers..y  Of  California  Library 
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Umversity  Of  California       ^''"°" 
Richmond,  CA  94804-4698 


DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 


JUNT 


FORM  NU.  uuu. 


2971*^4 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CAI.IFORNIA  LIBRAfeV 


